The Allenspark 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
68° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1907. Next is 67° in 1998.
Allenspark’s center stands about 8,930 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,780 ft to 10,480 ft, a difference of 2,700 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Longs Peak, about 14,220 ft, 5 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granitic rocks of 1400-m.y. age group (alkali-feldspar-granite, granite), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 0.4 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.
A raindrop that lands in Allenspark reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cabin Creek, North Saint Vrain Creek, Saint Vrain Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,400 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Allenspark; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Allenspark has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 155 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Allenspark normally reaches 41° and falls to 14°. The record high is 68°, in 1999; the record low −14°, in 1961. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1907 at Grand Lake 1 NW, 17 miles west, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
