The Elberta 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.
75° on Nov. 16, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 73° in 2016.
Elberta’s center stands about 4,700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,510 ft to 5,220 ft, a difference of 710 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Nebo, about 11,840 ft, 14 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lake Bonneville deposits (clay), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Latite, quartz-latite. Age: Late Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 38 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 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. 3 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 Elberta reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Currant Creek and the Jordan: about 85 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Lake on the way: Utah Lake.
50 miles of the trip are on the Jordan.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elberta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elberta has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 55 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Elberta normally reaches 49° and falls to 29°. The record high is 72°, in 1967; the record low 1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.97 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 at Santaquin Chlorinator, 9 miles east, 460 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.