The Fraser 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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65° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1989. Next is 62° in 2016.
Fraser’s center stands about 8,580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,390 ft to 9,410 ft, a difference of 1,020 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Arapaho Peak, about 13,480 ft, 10 miles east-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 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 smaller units 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.
A raindrop that lands in Fraser reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Fraser and the Colorado: about 1,390 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
410 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
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 Fraser; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fraser has a subarctic climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about −1° in January. A normal year brings about 143 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Fraser normally reaches 42° and falls to 10°. The record high is 65°, in 1999; the record low −21°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1989 at Fraser, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
