The Chinle 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
83° on Nov. 13, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is 76° in 1973.
Chinle’s center stands about 5,520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,460 ft to 5,970 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Rock Butte, about 7,530 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chinle Formation (mudstone), from the Late Triassic, 210 to 230 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.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 180 to 210 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Silt, clay. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 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.
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 Chinle reaches the Gulf of California by way of Nazlini Wash, Chinle Wash, Chinle Creek, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,110 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
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 Chinle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chinle has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 9 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 Chinle normally reaches 56° and falls to 27°. The record high is 83°, in 2025; the record low 4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 1962.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Canyon De Chelly, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
