The Ogden 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.
70° on Nov. 15, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 70° in 2024.
Ogden’s center stands about 4,340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,260 ft to 6,490 ft, a difference of 2,230 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Ben Lomond, about 9,660 ft, 9 miles north.
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 8 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Cambrian, 497 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Carbonate, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,600 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.6 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 Ogden reaches Great Salt Lake by way of the Ogden and the Weber: about 25 river miles. Great Salt 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 Ogden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ogden has a dry-summer hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ogden normally reaches 49° and falls to 31°. The record high is 69°, in 2025; the record low 19°, in 2009. The most rain on this date, 0.77 in, fell in 1950.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Ogden Hinkley Airport, 3 miles southwest, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.