The Salem 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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Showers likely
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−6° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 2° in 1916.
Salem’s center stands about 4,630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,530 ft to 6,670 ft, a difference of 2,140 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Provo Peak, about 10,970 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
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 7 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 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Latite, quartz-latite. Age: Late Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 38 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Permian, 273 to 299 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Salem reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Beer Creek, Benjamin Slough and the Jordan: about 80 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 Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a dry-summer hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 66 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 73°, in 1967; the record low 4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Spanish Fork Power House, 4 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
