The Rio Rico 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.
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Sunny
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.
Rio Rico’s center stands about 3,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,370 ft to 4,350 ft, a difference of 980 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Atascosa Peak, about 6,360 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
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 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.
Basalt, andesite, dacite. Age: Middle Eocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 38 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 200 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Oligocene to Late Miocene, 11 to 32 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 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. 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.
Rio Rico 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 Rio Rico 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, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
