The Rogue River 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.
12° on Nov. 13, 1978, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 15° in 1929.
Rogue River’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 3,360 ft, a difference of 2,380 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Isabelle, about 4,470 ft, 10 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvial deposits (sand, gravel, silt), from the Holocene, less than 12,000 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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metaandesite, metabasalt, spilite. Age: Triassic to Jurassic, 145 to 252 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Peridotite, serpentinite. Age: Paleozoic to Jurassic, 145 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartz-diorite, diorite. Age: Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 164 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 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 Rogue River reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Rogue: about 110 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rogue River; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rogue River has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 35° in January. About 31 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rogue River normally reaches 54° and falls to 39°. The record high is 73°, in 1995; the record low 13°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 1.74 in, fell in 1966.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Grants Pass, 8 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.