The Denver 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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78° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1858. Next is 74° in 1902.
Denver’s center stands about 400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 780 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Eagle Peak, about 1,320 ft, 8 miles north-northwest.
The section below crosses 20 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 14 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 Denver reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cocalico Creek, the Conestoga and the Susquehanna: about 85 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Denver; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Denver has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Denver normally reaches 54° and falls to 36°. The record high is 74°, in 1955; the record low 16°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.37 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1858 from the Reading Area threaded record (Reading 4 SW, 10 miles northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
