The Whiterocks 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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64° on Nov. 16, 1998, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 63° in 1989.
Whiterocks’s center stands about 6,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,710 ft to 6,440 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Paradise Peak, about 10,810 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial deposits (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 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: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Whiterocks reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Uinta, the Duchesne, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,280 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
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 Whiterocks; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Whiterocks has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Whiterocks normally reaches 46° and falls to 22°. The record high is 59°, in 2017; the record low 5°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Neola, 7 miles west-southwest, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
