The Berthoud 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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−14° on Nov. 11, 1950, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −13° in 1916.
Berthoud’s center stands about 5,000 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,800 ft to 5,140 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flatiron Mountain, about 6,170 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pierre Shale--Upper unit, from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Berthoud reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,360 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 Berthoud; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Berthoud has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Berthoud normally reaches 54° and falls to 24°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low −6°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.79 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Longmont 2 ESE, 10 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
