The Castle Dale 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
75° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 69° in 1903.
Castle Dale’s center stands about 5,670 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,530 ft to 6,020 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Horn Mountain, about 9,670 ft, 11 miles west.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. 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. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 125 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 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. 3 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 Castle Dale reaches the Gulf of California by way of Cottonwood Creek, the San Rafael, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,200 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 Castle Dale; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Castle Dale has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 17 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Castle Dale normally reaches 54° and falls to 20°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low 1°, in 1904. The most rain on this date, 0.60 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Castle Dale, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
