The Chugcreek 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.
Mostly cloudy
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
74° on Nov. 17, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 74° in 2025.
Chugcreek’s center stands about 4,750 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,530 ft to 4,880 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Eagles Nest, about 5,100 ft, 9 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower Miocene and Upper Oligocene rocks or rocks equivalent to Upper and Lower Miocene rocks and White River Formation (sandstone, siltstone, claystone), from the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, claystone. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Claystone, conglomerate. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 31 to 35 million years old. About 0.3 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 Chugcreek reaches the Gulf of America by way of Chugwater Creek, the Laramie, the North Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,360 river miles.
Lake on the way: Grayrocks Reservoir.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Chugcreek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chugcreek has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in December. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Guernsey Dam No 2, 19 miles north-northeast, 400 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
