The Montpelier 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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−9° on Nov. 17, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1992. Next is 2° in 1997.
Montpelier’s center stands about 5,980 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,920 ft to 7,710 ft, a difference of 1,790 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Meade Peak, about 9,890 ft, 12 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvial deposits (gravel, sand, silt), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone, limestone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 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 Montpelier reaches Great Salt Lake by way of the Bear River: about 230 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Montpelier; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Montpelier has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 91 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Montpelier normally reaches 44° and falls to 19°. The record high is 64°, in 2025; the record low 8°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1992 at Bern, 4 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
