The Olathe 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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10° on Nov. 17, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 11° in 2014.
Olathe’s center stands about 5,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,240 ft to 5,680 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Green Mountain, about 8,560 ft, 13 miles east.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, claystone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Olathe reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Uncompahgre, the Gunnison and the Colorado: about 1,230 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 Olathe; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Olathe has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 8 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Olathe normally reaches 52° and falls to 26°. The record high is 67°, in 2025; the record low 12°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Montrose Regional Airport, 8 miles south-southeast, 360 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
