The Ripley 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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93° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 90° in 1973.
Ripley’s center stands about 250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 240 ft to 260 ft, a difference of 20 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Trigo Peaks, about 2,100 ft, 14 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary alluvium and marine deposits (coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, 0.8 to 3 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Early Miocene, 18 to 1,680 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Holocene, less than 10,000 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.
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.
Ripley has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 108° in July; winter nights fall to about 42° in December. About 4 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ripley normally reaches 78° and falls to 50°. The record high is 91°, in 1999; the record low 32°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.87 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Blythe Asos, 7 miles north-northwest, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
