The Duchesne 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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67° on Nov. 13, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1906. Next is 67° in 2016.
Duchesne’s center stands about 5,520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,450 ft to 6,210 ft, a difference of 760 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buck Knoll, about 8,060 ft, 13 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and colluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million 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 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 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 Duchesne reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Duchesne, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,300 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 Duchesne; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Duchesne has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 29 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Duchesne normally reaches 49° and falls to 24°. The record high is 65°, in 1906; the record low −2°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.49 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 at Duchesne, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
