The Powell 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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78° on Nov. 12, 2024, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1981. Next is 76° in 2025.
Powell’s center stands about 4,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,310 ft to 4,490 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravel, pediment, and fan deposits, 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 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 9 mi of the line.
Claystone, shale, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 78 to 83 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 Powell reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bitter Creek, the Shoshone, the Bighorn, the Yellowstone, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 3,210 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Oahe, Lake Sakakawea, Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case.
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 Powell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Powell has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 11 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 7 inches of water.
On November 14 Powell normally reaches 44° and falls to 18°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low −13°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.25 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1981 at Powell Field Station, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
