The Altamont 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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62° on Nov. 11, 1959, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 62° in 1967.
Altamont’s center stands about 6,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,030 ft to 6,660 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Washs Nipple, about 7,940 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial deposits (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 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 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million 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 Altamont reaches the Gulf of California by way of Dry Gulch Creek, the Uinta, the Duchesne, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,290 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Altamont; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Altamont has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Altamont normally reaches 44° and falls to 19°. The record high is 62°, in 1967; the record low 7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Altamont, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
