The Sun Valley plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 13, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 75° in 1995.
Sun Valley’s center stands about 4,720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,440 ft to 5,590 ft, a difference of 1,150 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Peavine Mountain, about 8,220 ft, 8 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvium and alluvial fan deposits (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 34 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Metaandesite, metadacite, metarhyolite. Age: Triassic to Jurassic, 145 to 252 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granitic, granodiorite, quartz-monzonite. Age: Jurassic to Miocene, 5.3 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Andesite, dacite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
Sun Valley has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 7 inches of water.
On November 14 Sun Valley normally reaches 57° and falls to 31°. The record high is 74°, in 2016; the record low 4°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Reno Area threaded record (Reno Airport, 6 miles south, 320 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
