The Payson 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
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Showers likely
Showers likely
−6° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 2° in 1916.
Payson’s center stands about 4,660 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,510 ft to 5,730 ft, a difference of 1,220 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Peak, about 11,130 ft, 14 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lake Bonneville deposits (clay), from the Pleistocene, 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.
Clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Devonian to Early Mississippian, 347 to 374 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 273 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 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 Payson reaches Great Salt Lake by way of Benjamin Slough and the Jordan: about 75 river miles. Great Salt Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Lake on the way: Utah Lake.
50 miles of the trip are on the Jordan.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Payson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Payson has a dry-summer hot-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 66 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Payson normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 73°, in 1967; the record low 4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Spanish Fork Power House, 7 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
