The Brighton 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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3.14 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1915. The next wettest, 2.90 inches, fell in 1951.
Brighton’s center stands about 8,740 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,830 ft to 10,430 ft, a difference of 2,600 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Peaks, about 11,430 ft, 5 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial deposits (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granodiorite. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 42 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian, 347 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Cambrian, 497 to 542 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Brighton reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Big Cottonwood Creek and the Jordan: about 45 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brighton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brighton has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 72° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in December. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Brighton normally reaches 38° and falls to 18°. The record high is 62°, in 1936; the record low −10°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 1.55 in, fell in 1950.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1915 at Silver Lake Brighton, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
