The Elko 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
4.23 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.75 inches, fell in 1992.
Elko’s center stands about 350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 270 ft to 380 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Neogene strata (undifferentiated) (sand, gravel), from the Tertiary Neogene to Quaternary, less than 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, gravel. Age: Tertiary Neogene to Quaternary, less than 23 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 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 Elko reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Spur Branch, the South Fork Edisto, the Edisto and the North Edisto: about 170 river miles.
100 miles of the trip are on the Edisto.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elko; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elko has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Elko normally reaches 67° and falls to 41°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 1987. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Aiken Area threaded record (Aiken 2 E, 22 miles west-northwest, 160 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
