The Provo 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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77° on Nov. 15, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1916. Next is 76° in 1999.
Provo’s center stands about 4,560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,480 ft to 7,850 ft, a difference of 3,370 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Timpanogos, about 11,560 ft, 11 miles north.
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 4 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.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Early Mississippian, 347 to 374 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.
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 Provo reaches Great Salt Lake by way of the Mill Race and the Jordan: about 75 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 Provo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Provo has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 45 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Provo normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low 10°, in 1924. The most rain on this date, 0.70 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1916 at Provo Byu, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
