The Wales 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
Mostly cloudy
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Showers likely
−4° on Nov. 16, 1955, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is −3° in 1911.
Wales’s center stands about 5,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,470 ft to 8,030 ft, a difference of 2,560 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Horseshoe Mountain, about 10,950 ft, 14 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 5 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, conglomerate. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 72 to 113 million years old. About 8 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.
Limestone, mixed-clastic. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 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.
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 Wales reaches Sevier Lake by way of Silver Creek, the San Pitch and the Sevier: about 220 river miles. Sevier Lake has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
180 miles of the trip are on the Sevier.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wales; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wales has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Wales normally reaches 53° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1967; the record low 7°, in 1994. The most rain on this date, 0.72 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Moroni, 4 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
