The Scottsdale 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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89° on Nov. 13, 1967, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is 89° in 1999.
Scottsdale’s center stands about 2,320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,610 ft to 3,680 ft, a difference of 2,070 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Butte Peak, about 4,810 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Early Proterozoic metavolcanic rocks, from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Silt, clay. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion 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.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, schist. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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.
Scottsdale has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 103° in July; winter nights fall to about 41° in December. About 13 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Scottsdale normally reaches 74° and falls to 50°. The record high is 87°, in 1999; the record low 32°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.74 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Carefree, 9 miles north-northwest, 210 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
