The Deseret 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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76° on Nov. 15, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 73° in 1967.
Deseret’s center stands about 4,590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,570 ft to 4,610 ft, a difference of 40 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pahvant Butte, about 5,710 ft, 12 miles south-southeast.
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 3 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 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 Deseret reaches Sevier Lake by way of the Sevier: about 55 river miles. Sevier Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 70% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Deseret; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Deseret has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 20 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Deseret normally reaches 52° and falls to 24°. The record high is 73°, in 1967; the record low −2°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 0.47 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Deseret, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
