The Security-Widefield 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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78° on Nov. 17, 1981, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 78° in 2016.
Security-Widefield’s center stands about 5,830 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,610 ft to 6,090 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Rosa, about 11,440 ft, 13 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Granite, alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 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.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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. 3 smaller units 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 Security-Widefield reaches the Gulf of America by way of Fountain Creek, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,900 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Security-Widefield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Security-Widefield has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 32 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Security-Widefield normally reaches 54° and falls to 26°. The record high is 77°, in 1936; the record low −12°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 from the Colorado Springs Area threaded record (Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, 4 miles north-northeast, 350 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
