The Santa Clara 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.
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Chance of showers
83° on Nov. 12, 1934, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 82° in 1953.
Santa Clara’s center stands about 2,760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,660 ft to 3,570 ft, a difference of 910 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is West Mountain Peak, about 7,630 ft, 13 miles west.
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 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Triassic, 247 to 252 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Arenite, sandstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Middle Jurassic, 164 to 202 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Permian, 273 to 299 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 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. 5 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 Santa Clara reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Santa Clara, the Virgin and the Colorado: about 580 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Santa Clara; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Santa Clara has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 102° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 9 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Santa Clara normally reaches 64° and falls to 35°. The record high is 82°, in 1953; the record low 14°, in 1898. The most rain on this date, 0.55 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at St. George, 3 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
