The Vernal 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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71° on Nov. 12, 1937, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 70° in 1894.
Vernal’s center stands about 5,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,100 ft to 5,580 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Mountain, about 8,610 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvial deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 48 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. 7 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 Vernal reaches the Gulf of California by way of Ashley Creek, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,300 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 Vernal; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Vernal has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 20 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Vernal normally reaches 47° and falls to 24°. The record high is 68°, in 1989; the record low 5°, in 1929. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1987.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Vernal, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
