The Fort Lupton 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Chance of showers
−13° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is −3° in 2000.
Fort Lupton’s center stands about 4,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,860 ft to 5,060 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Riley Mound, about 5,190 ft, 4 miles northeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arkose, shale, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 2 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 Fort Lupton reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,370 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 Fort Lupton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fort Lupton has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 14 inches of water.
On November 14 Fort Lupton normally reaches 54° and falls to 26°. The record high is 81°, in 1990; the record low 0°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.17 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Brighton 3 SE, 10 miles south, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
