The Bonanza 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.
−10° on Nov. 15, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1932. Next is −5° in 1985.
Bonanza’s center stands about 4,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,110 ft to 4,740 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Yainax Butte, about 7,210 ft, 11 miles northeast.
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 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.
Basalt. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.9 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 Bonanza reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Lost and the Klamath: about 280 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bonanza; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bonanza has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in December. A normal year brings about 23 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Bonanza normally reaches 50° and falls to 25°. The record high is 67°, in 1995; the record low 1°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 1990.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1932 at Tulelake, 17 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.