The Ione 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. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 77° in 1990.
Ione’s center stands about 1,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,030 ft to 2,100 ft, a difference of 1,070 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Swaggart Buttes, about 2,730 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Grande Ronde Basalt, from the Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene, 12 to 16 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 6 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 Ione reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Willow Creek and the Columbia: about 280 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Umatilla.
210 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ione; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ione has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in December. A normal year brings about 13 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Ione normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.56 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Heppner, 16 miles southeast, 780 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
