The Patagonia 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.
3.10 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1952. The next wettest, 1.33 inches, fell in 1959.
Patagonia’s center stands about 4,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,970 ft to 5,780 ft, a difference of 1,810 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Wrightson, about 9,340 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Early Pleistocene to latest Pliocene surficial deposits (gravel, sand), from the Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 3 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Arenite, conglomerate. Age: Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, 80 to 160 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite, andesite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 200 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.4 to 1.4 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 150 to 170 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. 2 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.
Patagonia has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in June; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Patagonia normally reaches 74° and falls to 35°. The record high is 88°, in 2017; the record low 22°, in 1961. The most rain on this date, 0.73 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Nogales 6 N, 14 miles west-southwest, 590 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.