The Golden 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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3° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1901. Next is 5° in 2019.
Golden’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 730 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carbondale Formation (shale, sandstone, coal), from the Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone, coal. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 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.
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 Golden reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Fork Bear Creek, Bear Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,350 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Golden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Golden has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Golden normally reaches 52° and falls to 34°. The record high is 76°, in 2025; the record low 9°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 from the Quincy Area threaded record (Quincy Regional Airport, 15 miles southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
