The Laramie 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
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
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Mostly sunny; cooler
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
−24° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −16° in 1980.
Laramie’s center stands about 7,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,130 ft to 7,370 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pole Mountain, about 8,980 ft, 12 miles east-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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.4 to 1.4 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Early Triassic to Late Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 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 Laramie reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Laramie, the North Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,490 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Wheatland Reservoir Number 2 and 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 Laramie; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Laramie has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 10 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Laramie normally reaches 43° and falls to 19°. The record high is 66°, in 1999; the record low −9°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 0.18 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Laramie Airport, 4 miles west, 100 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
