The Christopher Creek 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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8° on Nov. 17, 1964, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1903. Next is 11° in 1904.
Christopher Creek’s center stands about 5,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,510 ft to 7,770 ft, a difference of 2,260 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is OW Point, about 7,600 ft, 11 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mississippian, Devonian, and Cambrian sedimentary rocks (sandstone, shale, limestone), from the Early Cambrian to Late Mississippian, 330 to 540 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 5×. 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, limestone. Age: Permian, 270 to 280 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, quartzite. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 700 to 1,300 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.7 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Mississippian, 330 to 540 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 Christopher Creek reaches the Gulf of California by way of Christopher Creek, Tonto Creek, the Salt River, the Gila and the Colorado: about 490 river miles.
200 miles of the trip are on the Gila.
Often dry. About 50% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
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 Christopher Creek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Christopher Creek has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Christopher Creek normally reaches 62° and falls to 30°. The record high is 81°, in 1967; the record low 11°, in 1904. The most rain on this date, 1.30 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 at Pleasant Valley, 15 miles south, 660 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
