The Torrey 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
72° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 69° in 2021.
Torrey’s center stands about 6,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,440 ft to 7,460 ft, a difference of 1,020 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Boulder Mountain, about 11,310 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvial deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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 5 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 28 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 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. 2 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 Torrey reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Fremont, the Dirty Devil and the Colorado: about 1,080 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, 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 Torrey; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Torrey has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 19 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Torrey normally reaches 51° and falls to 18°. The record high is 68°, in 1967; the record low 0°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 0.37 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Loa, 14 miles west-northwest, 220 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
