The Vail 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy; warmer
Showers likely
Chance of showers; cooler
Chance of showers
Showers likely
−7° on Nov. 15, 1997, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1985. Next is −6° in 2000.
Vail’s center stands about 8,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,000 ft to 11,100 ft, a difference of 3,100 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount of the Holy Cross, about 13,950 ft, 13 miles south-southwest.
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 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
Arkose, siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 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 Vail reaches the Gulf of California by way of Gore Creek, the Eagle and the Colorado: about 1,320 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 Vail; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Vail has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 189 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 22 inches of water.
On November 14 Vail normally reaches 38° and falls to 16°. The record high is 57°, in 1989; the record low −6°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.58 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1985 at Vail, here, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
