The Wellington 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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3° on Nov. 12, 2012, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1980. Next is 4° in 2020.
Wellington’s center stands about 5,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,350 ft to 5,620 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Knoll, about 6,840 ft, 12 miles west-southwest.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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 Wellington reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Price, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,210 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 Wellington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wellington has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1980 at Wellington 3 E, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
