The Firestone 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.
Firestone’s center stands about 4,850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,790 ft to 4,980 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rabbit Mountain, about 5,970 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eolian deposits (sand, silt), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. 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. 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 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, claystone, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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.
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 Firestone reaches the Gulf of America by way of Saint Vrain Creek, 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 Firestone; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Firestone 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 Firestone 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, 7 miles west, 100 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
