The Valmont 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
80° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 78° in 2025.
Valmont’s center stands about 5,160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,090 ft to 5,370 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Starr Peak, about 10,490 ft, 15 miles southwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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. 2 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 Valmont reaches the Gulf of America by way of Boulder Creek, Saint Vrain Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,380 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 Valmont; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Valmont has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in December. A normal year brings about 93 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 21 inches of water.
On November 14 Valmont normally reaches 55° and falls to 29°. The record high is 78°, in 2025; the record low −2°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.19 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Boulder, 4 miles southwest, 330 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
