The Gunnison 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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−24° on Nov. 17, 1951, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −17° in 1930.
Gunnison’s center stands about 7,710 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,620 ft to 8,480 ft, a difference of 860 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Red Mountain, about 11,670 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Modern alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 35 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Gunnison reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Gunnison and the Colorado: about 1,310 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 Gunnison; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gunnison has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −6° in January. A normal year brings about 46 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Gunnison normally reaches 45° and falls to 12°. The record high is 65°, in 1903; the record low −13°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Gunnison 3 SW, 3 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
