The Garden City 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.
−17° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is −6° in 1916.
Garden City’s center stands about 5,970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,920 ft to 7,240 ft, a difference of 1,320 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Naomi Peak, about 9,920 ft, 15 miles west.
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 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, limestone, sandstone. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, mixed-clastic. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 48 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Middle Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 521 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. 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 Garden City reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Bear Lake, Mud Lake and the Bear River: about 280 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: Bear Lake and Mud Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Garden City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Garden City has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 84 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Garden City normally reaches 43° and falls to 24°. The record high is 64°, in 1990; the record low 4°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Laketown, 9 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.