The Rocky Ford 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. 11, 2005, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 82° in 2007.
Rocky Ford’s center stands about 4,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,120 ft to 4,370 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Meredith Hill, about 4,400 ft, 9 miles 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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 42×. 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, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 4 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 Rocky Ford reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,790 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
900 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rocky Ford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rocky Ford has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 25 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Rocky Ford normally reaches 58° and falls to 24°. The record high is 81°, in 1990; the record low −6°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.04 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Rocky Ford 2 SE, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
