The Escudilla Bonita 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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75° on Nov. 11, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 74° in 1934.
Escudilla Bonita’s center stands about 7,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,200 ft to 8,070 ft, a difference of 870 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Escudilla Mountain, about 10,920 ft, 12 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Paleogene sedimentary units (conglomerate, sandstone, shale), from the Tertiary Paleogene, 23 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Paleocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 65 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Early Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 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.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, shale. Age: Tertiary Paleogene, 23 to 66 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. 3 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 Escudilla Bonita reaches the Gulf of California by way of Coyote Creek, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,080 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
330 miles of the trip are on the Little Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Escudilla Bonita; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Escudilla Bonita has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in June; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 11 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Escudilla Bonita normally reaches 60° and falls to 22°. The record high is 74°, in 2017; the record low 0°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.91 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Springerville, 15 miles west, 350 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
