The Rancho Mesa Verde 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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30° on Nov. 17, 1958, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1876. Next is 33° in 1964.
Rancho Mesa Verde’s center stands about 190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 100 ft to 210 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Avi Kwalal, about 840 ft, 11 miles north-northwest.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 60×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 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.
Rancho Mesa Verde has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 107° in July; winter nights fall to about 47° in December. About 3 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rancho Mesa Verde normally reaches 78° and falls to 55°. The record high is 93°, in 1906; the record low 37°, in 1929. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1899.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1876 from the Yuma Area threaded record (Yuma International Airport, 6 miles north-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
