The Westcreek 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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76° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 74° in 1953.
Westcreek’s center stands about 7,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,210 ft to 9,200 ft, a difference of 1,990 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buffalo Peak, about 11,540 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rocks of Pikes Peak Batholith (1000-m.y. age group) (granite, alkali-feldspar-granite), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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, alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, quartzite. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 0.9 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 Westcreek reaches the Gulf of America by way of West Creek, Horse Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,460 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 Westcreek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Westcreek has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 59 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Westcreek normally reaches 54° and falls to 23°. The record high is 74°, in 1953; the record low −4°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Cheesman, 8 miles northwest, 660 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
