The Nelson 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
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
92° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1987. Next is 91° in 2013.
Nelson’s center stands about 1,980 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,920 ft to 2,010 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jeffords Peak, about 4,660 ft, 15 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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene, 14 to 26 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite, andesite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 0.7 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.
Nelson has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 104° in June; winter nights fall to about 40° in December. About 10 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Nelson normally reaches 77° and falls to 49°. The record high is 90°, in 1999; the record low 35°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 1991.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1987 at Picacho 8 SE, 17 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
