The Little America 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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−14° on Nov. 15, 1985, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is −13° in 1978.
Little America’s center stands about 6,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,260 ft to 6,540 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Antelope Knoll, about 7,050 ft, 13 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bridger Formation (sandstone, claystone), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 29×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Sand, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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 Little America reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Blacks Fork, the Green River and the Colorado: about 1,500 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Flaming Gorge Reservoir and Lake Mohave.
410 miles of the trip are on the Green River.
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 Little America; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Little America has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in December. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Little America normally reaches 42° and falls to 22°. The record high is 65°, in 2025; the record low −8°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.55 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Church Buttes Gas Plant, 16 miles southwest, 660 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
