The Baggs 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
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Chance of showers; cooler
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−19° on Nov. 12, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1979. Next is −10° in 1982.
Baggs’s center stands about 6,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,200 ft to 6,800 ft, a difference of 600 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bakers Peak, about 9,380 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and Colluvium (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Claystone, shale, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, siltstone. Age: Paleocene to Eocene, 34 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Oil-shale, marlstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 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. 2 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 Baggs reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Little Snake, the Yampa, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,500 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 Baggs; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Baggs has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Baggs normally reaches 45° and falls to 19°. The record high is 64°, in 2025; the record low −10°, in 1982. The most rain on this date, 0.17 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1979 at Baggs, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
