The Shaniko 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.
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
−6° on Nov. 16, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is −4° in 1955.
Shaniko’s center stands about 3,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,820 ft to 3,490 ft, a difference of 670 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Maupin Butte, about 4,260 ft, 11 miles southeast.
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 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.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Middle Miocene, 12 to 16 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Eocene to Early Miocene, 16 to 38 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 0.3 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 Shaniko reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the John Day and the Columbia: about 320 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 Shaniko; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Shaniko has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in December. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Shaniko normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low 0°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.60 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1924 at Antelope 6 SSW, 13 miles south, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
