The Holden 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.
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy; warmer
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Showers likely
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−3° on Nov. 13, 1916, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 2° in 1955.
Holden’s center stands about 5,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,850 ft to 5,710 ft, a difference of 860 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pioneer Peak, about 10,090 ft, 9 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 7 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 12 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 48 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Cambrian, 497 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Holden reaches Sevier Lake by way of Wild Goose Creek, the Central Utah Canal and the Sevier: about 140 river miles. Sevier Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
100 miles of the trip are on the Sevier.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Holden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Holden has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Holden normally reaches 50° and falls to 29°. The record high is 81°, in 1906; the record low 3°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.85 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Fillmore, 10 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
