The Alma 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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−20° on Nov. 12, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −18° in 1955.
Alma’s center stands about 10,590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 10,170 ft to 12,730 ft, a difference of 2,560 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Lincoln, about 14,230 ft, 5 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial drift (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Carboniferous, 324 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 6 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 Alma reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Fork South Platte, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,540 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Elevenmile Canyon Reservoir and Spinney Mountain Reservoir.
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 Alma; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alma has a subarctic climate. Summer afternoons average 67° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 295 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 25 inches of water.
On November 14 Alma normally reaches 36° and falls to 12°. The record high is 58°, in 1999; the record low −15°, in 1994. The most rain on this date, 0.71 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Climax, 9 miles northwest, 750 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
