The Kirtland 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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78° on Nov. 16, 2024, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1978. Next is 77° in 2025.
Kirtland’s center stands about 5,190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,110 ft to 5,590 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pinon Mesa, about 6,180 ft, 7 miles north-northeast.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 20×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Kirtland reaches the Gulf of California by way of Stevens Arroyo, the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,100 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 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 Kirtland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kirtland has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Kirtland normally reaches 54° and falls to 29°. The record high is 77°, in 2025; the record low 17°, in 2010. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1978 at Farmington Ag Science Cnt, 4 miles southeast, 440 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
