The Apache Junction 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.
32° on Nov. 15, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1987. Next is 32° in 2015.
Apache Junction’s center stands about 1,720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,560 ft to 1,910 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Superstition Peak, about 4,950 ft, 9 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Holocene surficial deposits (silt, clay), from the Holocene, less than 10,000 years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Silt, clay. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.8 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 6 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, tonalite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 0.4 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.
Apache Junction has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 105° in July; winter nights fall to about 42° in December. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Apache Junction normally reaches 76° and falls to 50°. The record high is 91°, in 1999; the record low 34°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1987 at Apache Junction 5 NE, 5 miles northeast, 350 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.