The Amado 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.
14° on Nov. 17, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1946. Next is 18° in 1958.
Amado’s center stands about 3,090 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,010 ft to 3,360 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Wrightson, about 9,340 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Holocene river alluvium (sand, gravel), from the Holocene, less than 10,000 years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. 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, sand. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 3 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Diorite, alkali-granite, granodiorite. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 150 to 180 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. 3 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.
Amado has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in June; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Amado normally reaches 72° and falls to 39°. The record high is 89°, in 1967; the record low 24°, in 1961. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Tumacacori Nm, 10 miles south, 180 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.