The Ochoco West 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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71° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1934. Next is 71° in 2008.
Ochoco West’s center stands about 3,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,890 ft to 5,040 ft, a difference of 2,150 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Green Mountain, about 5,730 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rhyolite and dacite domes and flows and small hypabyssal intrusive bodies (rhyolite, dacite), from the Late Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 38 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. 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. Age: Paleocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 66 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite. Age: Late Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 38 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Ochoco West reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Lytle Creek, the Crooked River, the Deschutes and the Columbia: about 360 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Billy Chinook.
200 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ochoco West; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ochoco West has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in December. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Ochoco West normally reaches 49° and falls to 26°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −9°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Grizzly, 8 miles north, 420 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
