The Washtucna 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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73° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 69° in 1990.
Washtucna’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,620 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Coyote Butte, about 1,700 ft, 12 miles northeast.
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 16×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 28 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 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.
Washtucna has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in December. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Washtucna normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 66°, in 1999; the record low −5°, in 1955. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 1966.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Hatton 9 SE, 16 miles west, 480 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
