The Altamont 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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73° on Nov. 12, 1996, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 66° in 1959.
Altamont’s center stands about 4,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,080 ft to 5,660 ft, a difference of 1,580 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Swan Lake Point, about 7,250 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lacustrine and fluvial sedimentary rocks (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 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 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 1 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 Altamont reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Link and the Klamath: about 250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Altamont; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Altamont has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in December. About 11 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Altamont normally reaches 50° and falls to 25°. The record high is 62°, in 2021; the record low 1°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Klamath Falls Ag Sta, 3 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
