The Rico 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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69° on Nov. 11, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is 67° in 1967.
Rico’s center stands about 8,780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,650 ft to 12,150 ft, a difference of 3,500 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Wilson, about 14,100 ft, 11 miles north-northeast.
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 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arkose, siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale, sandstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone, claystone. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Arkose, conglomerate, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Rico reaches the Gulf of California by way of the Dolores and the Colorado: about 1,320 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 Rico; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rico has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 131 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Rico normally reaches 46° and falls to 13°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low −9°, in 1915. The most rain on this date, 0.47 in, fell in 2004.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Telluride 4 WNW, 20 miles north-northeast, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
