The Powell 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Chance of showers
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68° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 67° in 2023.
Powell’s center stands about 870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 1,390 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Benison, about 1,600 ft, 6 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gneiss and amphibolite (gneiss, amphibolite), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 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 Powell reaches Lake Superior by way of the River Styx and the Pine River: about 7 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Powell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Powell has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 132 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Powell normally reaches 41° and falls to 28°. The record high is 63°, in 2016; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Big Bay 1 NW, 5 miles east, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
