The Douglas 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.
3.05 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 1.35 inches, fell in 1968.
Douglas’s center stands about 4,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,970 ft to 4,250 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is College Peaks, about 6,310 ft, 8 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary surficial deposits, undivided (sand, silt, clay), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Arenite, conglomerate. Age: Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 80 to 160 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 0.5 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.
Douglas has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in June; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 12 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Douglas normally reaches 71° and falls to 35°. The record high is 86°, in 2017; the record low 24°, in 2010. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Douglas (Bisbee) International Airport, 6 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.