The Lupton 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.
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Mostly sunny; cooler
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
2° on Nov. 12, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is 2° in 2018.
Lupton’s center stands about 6,180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,120 ft to 7,080 ft, a difference of 960 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Torrivio Mesa, about 7,040 ft, 13 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows San Rafael Group (sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 180 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Permian, 270 to 280 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 180 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Jurassic, 164 to 175 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Lupton reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Puerco, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,030 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lupton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lupton has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Lupton normally reaches 56° and falls to 20°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Gallup Municipal Airport, 18 miles northeast, 280 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
