The Charleston 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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72° on Nov. 16, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1939. Next is 71° in 1967.
Charleston’s center stands about 5,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,400 ft to 6,910 ft, a difference of 1,510 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Timpanogos, about 11,560 ft, 11 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and colluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 38 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 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. 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 Charleston reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Deer Creek Reservoir, the Provo and the Jordan: about 95 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Lakes on the way: Utah Lake and Deer Creek Reservoir.
50 miles of the trip are on the Jordan.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charleston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charleston has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 22 inches of water.
On November 14 Charleston normally reaches 49° and falls to 23°. The record high is 70°, in 1990; the record low 2°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.63 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1939 at Deer Creek Dam, 5 miles southwest, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
