The Reno 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.
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79° on Nov. 17, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1926. Next is 79° in 1993.
Reno’s center stands about 660 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 970 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buzzard Rocks, about 1,270 ft, 10 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Dunkard Group (mudstone, shale, siltstone), from the Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 31×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mudstone, shale, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.8 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.
A raindrop that lands in Reno reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Muskingum, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,780 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Reno; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Reno has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Reno normally reaches 55° and falls to 35°. The record high is 79°, in 1993; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.25 in, fell in 2007.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1926 from the Parkersburg Area threaded record (Parkersburg/Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport, 4 miles southwest, 140 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
