The Keenesburg 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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83° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1967. Next is 80° in 1999.
Keenesburg’s center stands about 4,920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,790 ft to 5,030 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Riley Mound, about 5,190 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 36×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Arkose, shale, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Keenesburg reaches the Gulf of America by way of Box Elder Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,350 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 Keenesburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Keenesburg has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 35 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Keenesburg normally reaches 54° and falls to 26°. The record high is 78°, in 2025; the record low 4°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1967 at Greeley Unc, 19 miles north-northwest, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
