The Cloudcroft 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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2° on Nov. 13, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1987. Next is 4° in 2000.
Cloudcroft’s center stands about 8,680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,570 ft to 9,100 ft, a difference of 1,530 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cathey Peak, about 9,640 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows San Andres Formation (limestone, dolostone), from the Permian, 260 to 290 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 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.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone, carbonate, evaporite. Age: Permian, 273 to 290 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 284 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sedimentary. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Cloudcroft reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Peñasco, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 1,240 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Red Bluff Reservoir and Lake McMillan.
410 miles of the trip are on the Pecos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cloudcroft; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cloudcroft has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 74° in June; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 67 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 28 inches of water.
On November 14 Cloudcroft normally reaches 51° and falls to 26°. The record high is 64°, in 2008; the record low 11°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 2003.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1987 at Cloudcroft, 3 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
