The Bernalillo 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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74° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1953. Next is 73° in 2005.
Bernalillo’s center stands about 5,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,030 ft to 5,610 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Sandia Peak, about 10,380 ft, 7 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old.
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 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Late Oligocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 28 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 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 Bernalillo reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Grande: about 1,570 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Elephant Butte Reservoir and Caballo Reservoir.
760 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bernalillo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bernalillo has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Bernalillo normally reaches 58° and falls to 29°. The record high is 73°, in 2005; the record low 16°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.12 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1953 at Jemez Dam, 6 miles north, 340 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
