The Montezuma 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy; warmer
Chance of showers
Chance of showers; cooler
Chance of showers
Showers likely
60° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1968. Next is 58° in 1980.
Montezuma’s center stands about 10,320 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 9,700 ft to 12,860 ft, a difference of 3,160 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Grays Peak, about 14,210 ft, 4 miles northeast.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss, schist, migmatite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mafic-hypabyssal, felsic-hypabyssal. Age: Eocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 56 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granitic, dioritic. Age: Late Cretaceous to Middle Eocene, 40 to 72 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. 2 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 Montezuma reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Snake, the Blue River and the Colorado: about 1,400 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
380 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
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 Montezuma; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Montezuma has a subarctic climate. Summer afternoons average 69° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 154 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 22 inches of water.
On November 14 Montezuma normally reaches 40° and falls to 19°. The record high is 58°, in 1990; the record low −8°, in 1997. The most rain on this date, 0.39 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1968 at Cabin Creek, 10 miles east-northeast, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
