The Valencia West 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
Sunny
Sunny
92° on Nov. 11, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 92° in 2020.
Valencia West’s center stands about 2,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,400 ft to 2,660 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wasson Peak, about 4,640 ft, 10 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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. 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 17 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite, andesite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene, 50 to 82 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 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.
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.
Valencia West has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 101° in June; winter nights fall to about 41° in January. About 11 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Valencia West normally reaches 76° and falls to 48°. The record high is 90°, in 1999; the record low 24°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 from the Tucson Area threaded record (Tucson International Airport, 9 miles east). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
