The Oak 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.
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75° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 73° in 1934.
Oak City’s center stands about 5,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,760 ft to 6,240 ft, a difference of 1,480 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fool Creek Peak, about 9,650 ft, 7 miles east.
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 8 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Cambrian, 497 to 542 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 497 million years old. About 0.3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Oak City reaches Sevier Lake by way of the Central Utah Canal and the Sevier: about 120 river miles. Sevier Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 30% 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 Oak City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Oak City has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 33 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Oak City normally reaches 52° and falls to 29°. The record high is 72°, in 1997; the record low 5°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 0.83 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Oak City, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
