The Dixie 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
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
81° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is 70° in 1953.
Dixie’s center stands about 1,570 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,370 ft to 2,500 ft, a difference of 1,130 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Table Rock, about 6,240 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary nonmarine deposits (silt), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 28 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 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 Dixie reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Dry Creek, the Walla Walla and the Columbia: about 360 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Umatilla.
210 miles of the trip are on the Columbia.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dixie; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dixie has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in December. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Dixie normally reaches 50° and falls to 36°. The record high is 70°, in 1953; the record low 0°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.60 in, fell in 1963.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Walla Walla Regional Airport, 7 miles west-southwest, 400 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
