The Ward 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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65° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1989. Next is 62° in 2016.
Ward’s center stands about 9,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,290 ft to 11,290 ft, a difference of 3,000 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Longs Peak, about 14,220 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotitic gneiss, schist, and migmatite (biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old.
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 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.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic, dioritic. Age: Late Cretaceous to Middle Eocene, 40 to 72 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Permian to Early Triassic, 247 to 299 million years old. About 0.7 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 Ward reaches the Gulf of America by way of Left Hand Creek, Saint Vrain Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,400 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 Ward; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ward has a subarctic climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about −1° in January. A normal year brings about 143 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Ward normally reaches 42° and falls to 10°. The record high is 65°, in 1999; the record low −21°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1989 at Fraser, 18 miles west-southwest, 930 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
