The Crawford 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.
Chance of showers
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Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Chance of showers; cooler
Showers likely
Showers likely
71° on Nov. 14, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1951. Next is 70° in 2005.
Crawford’s center stands about 6,580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,960 ft to 7,160 ft, a difference of 1,200 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Gunnison, about 12,680 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Dakota Sandstone and Burro Canyon Fm (sandstone, shale, conglomerate), from the Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 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 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.
Sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 35 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 Crawford reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Smith Fork, the Gunnison and the Colorado: about 1,250 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 Crawford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Crawford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 67 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Crawford normally reaches 50° and falls to 17°. The record high is 71°, in 2016; the record low −4°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.68 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1951 at Cimarron, 18 miles south, 310 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
