The Craig 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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−18° on Nov. 16, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is −17° in 2000.
Craig’s center stands about 6,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,160 ft to 6,590 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Daton Peak, about 8,150 ft, 15 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Modern alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million 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 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 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 Craig reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Yampa, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,480 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Craig; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Craig has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. About 14 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Craig normally reaches 48° and falls to 18°. The record high is 68°, in 2025; the record low −7°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.12 in, fell in 2022.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Craig Moffat County Airport, 2 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
