The Carson 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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22° on Nov. 15, 1909, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 22° in 1911.
Carson’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 2,160 ft, a difference of 2,090 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Defiance, about 4,950 ft, 7 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pleistocene-Recent volcanic rocks (basalt), from the Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 5.3 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Basaltic-andesite, basalt. Age: Early Pliocene to Pleistocene, 1.2 to 3.9 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Miocene to Middle Miocene, 12 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand, boulders. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Carson reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Wind River and the Columbia: about 150 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Carson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Carson has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in August; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Carson normally reaches 51° and falls to 39°. The record high is 65°, in 1906; the record low 25°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 2.77 in, fell in 1896.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Cascade Locks, 4 miles southwest, 340 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
