The Crestone 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
1° on Nov. 13, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1982. Next is 2° in 1997.
Crestone’s center stands about 7,970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,660 ft to 11,250 ft, a difference of 3,590 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Crestone Peak, about 14,180 ft, 6 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 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.
Conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Tertiary to Quaternary, less than 66 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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.
Crestone has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 59 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Crestone normally reaches 46° and falls to 20°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low 1°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.46 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1982 at Crestone 2 SE, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
