The Dolores 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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71° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is 70° in 1899.
Dolores’s center stands about 6,950 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,820 ft to 7,590 ft, a difference of 770 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Park Mesa, about 8,550 ft, 14 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Morrison, Wanakah, and Entrada Fms (sandstone, mudstone, claystone), from the Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 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 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.
Sandstone, shale, conglomerate. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, claystone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Claystone, mudstone, sandstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 0.5 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.
A raindrop that lands in Dolores reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Dolores and the Colorado: about 1,280 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dolores; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dolores has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 57 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Dolores normally reaches 52° and falls to 22°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 1910.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Mancos 1 SW, 14 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
