The Hayden 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely; cooler
Chance of showers
Showers likely
71° on Nov. 11, 1980, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 70° in 1999.
Hayden’s center stands about 6,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,310 ft to 7,240 ft, a difference of 930 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pilot Knob, about 9,790 ft, 14 miles northeast.
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 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Mafic-hypabyssal, felsic-hypabyssal. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 0.5 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 Hayden reaches the Gulf of California by way of Dry Creek, the Yampa, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,500 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 Hayden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hayden has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 113 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Hayden normally reaches 46° and falls to 20°. The record high is 67°, in 2025; the record low −14°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.35 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Hayden, here, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
