The Gunnison 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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74° on Nov. 16, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 71° in 1908.
Gunnison’s center stands about 5,160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,040 ft to 5,660 ft, a difference of 620 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Order Mountain, about 9,560 ft, 12 miles southeast.
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 8 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, mixed-clastic. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, marlstone. Age: Early Eocene to Late Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 38 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Gunnison reaches Sevier Lake by way of the San Pitch and the Sevier: about 190 river miles. Sevier Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gunnison; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gunnison has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Gunnison normally reaches 51° and falls to 25°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low −3°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Scipio, 17 miles west-northwest, 150 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
