The Window Rock 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers; cooler
2° on Nov. 12, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is 2° in 2018.
Window Rock’s center stands about 6,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,690 ft to 7,360 ft, a difference of 670 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twin Buttes, about 8,520 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows San Rafael Group (sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 180 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 160 to 180 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 210 to 230 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 280 to 310 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million 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. 4 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.
A raindrop that lands in Window Rock reaches the Gulf of California by way of Black Creek, the Puerco, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,060 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Window Rock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Window Rock has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Window Rock normally reaches 56° and falls to 20°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Gallup Municipal Airport, 19 miles southeast, 430 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
