The Santaquin 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.
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
75° on Nov. 16, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 73° in 2016.
Santaquin’s center stands about 4,970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,650 ft to 7,980 ft, a difference of 3,330 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Nebo, about 11,840 ft, 11 miles south.
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 13 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 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone-mudstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Peat. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 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. 7 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 Santaquin reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Utah Lake and the Jordan: about 90 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 Santaquin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Santaquin has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 55 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Santaquin normally reaches 49° and falls to 29°. The record high is 72°, in 1967; the record low 1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.97 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 at Santaquin Chlorinator, here, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
