The Kelly 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
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Chance of showers; cooler
Showers likely
Showers likely
64° on Nov. 15, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 63° in 1999.
Kelly’s center stands about 6,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,540 ft to 8,130 ft, a difference of 1,590 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Grand Teton, about 13,280 ft, 12 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel, boulders. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Archean. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone, shale. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 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 Kelly reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of the Gros Ventre, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,290 river miles.
Lakes on the way: American Falls Reservoir, Palisades Reservoir, Lake Umatilla and Brownlee Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kelly; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kelly has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 78 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Kelly normally reaches 38° and falls to 16°. The record high is 62°, in 1999; the record low −12°, in 1922. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Jackson, 11 miles southwest, 430 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
