The Scofield 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
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
62° on Nov. 11, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 61° in 1989.
Scofield’s center stands about 7,720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,600 ft to 9,400 ft, a difference of 1,800 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Monument Peak, about 10,440 ft, 7 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mesaverde Group (sandstone-mudstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, mixed-clastic. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old. About 2 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 Scofield reaches the Gulf of California by way of Mud Creek, the Price, 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 Scofield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Scofield has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Scofield normally reaches 43° and falls to 19°. The record high is 57°, in 2025; the record low 0°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.32 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Scofield Dam, 5 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
