The Flagstaff 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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3.64 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1898. The next wettest, 3.21 inches, fell in 1991.
Flagstaff’s center stands about 6,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,800 ft to 7,470 ft, a difference of 670 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is San Francisco Mountain, about 12,570 ft, 10 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Holocene to middle Pliocene basaltic rocks, from the Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million 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 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.
Rhyolite, dacite, andesite. Age: Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Permian, 270 to 280 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Pliocene to Holocene, less than 4 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Late Miocene to Early Pliocene, 4 to 8 million years old. About 2 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 Flagstaff reaches the Gulf of California by way of San Francisco Wash, Canyon Diablo Wash, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 900 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, 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 Flagstaff; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Flagstaff has a dry-summer warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in December. A normal year brings about 90 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Flagstaff normally reaches 53° and falls to 24°. The record high is 70°, in 1967; the record low −5°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 1.96 in, fell in 1991.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 from the Flagstaff Area threaded record (Flagstaff Airport, 4 miles south-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
