The Parowan 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
75° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1983. Next is 71° in 1999.
Parowan’s center stands about 6,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,770 ft to 7,900 ft, a difference of 2,130 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Brian Head, about 11,300 ft, 11 miles south.
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 6 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 11 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 56 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, mudstone. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 59 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 94 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 28 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.6 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 Parowan reaches the Great Basin by way of Parowan Creek: about 4 river miles. The Great Basin has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Parowan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Parowan has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in December. A normal year brings about 55 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Parowan normally reaches 52° and falls to 28°. The record high is 70°, in 1990; the record low 10°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 1.25 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1983 at Cedar City 5 E, 16 miles southwest, 440 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
