The Fort 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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69° on Nov. 16, 1981, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1915. Next is 69° in 1989.
Fort Duchesne’s center stands about 4,990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,880 ft to 5,280 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flattop Butte, about 5,630 ft, 14 miles west-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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. 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: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 million years old. About 9 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 Fort Duchesne reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Uinta, the Duchesne, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,270 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 Fort Duchesne; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fort Duchesne has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. About 7 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fort Duchesne normally reaches 50° and falls to 22°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 6°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 2.00 in, fell in 1964.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1915 at Myton, 13 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
