The Rush Valley 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
−7° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 1° in 1916.
Rush Valley’s center stands about 5,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,990 ft to 5,730 ft, a difference of 740 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Deseret Peak, about 10,960 ft, 11 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 10 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 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 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. 4 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.
Rain that falls on Rush Valley runs only a short way, about 5 miles, to the Great Basin. 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 Rush Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rush Valley has a dry-summer hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Rush Valley normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 73°, in 2016; the record low 1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.11 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Tooele, 14 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
