The La Jara 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, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1938. Next is 72° in 1953.
La Jara’s center stands about 7,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,020 ft to 7,710 ft, a difference of 690 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cerro Jarocito, about 9,910 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows San Jose Formation (claystone, sandstone), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Claystone, sandstone. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, diorite, gabbro. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.7 to 1.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granitic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.7 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic, metaclastic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 0.6 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 La Jara reaches the Gulf of America by way of La Jara Creek, the Arroyo San Jose, the Rio Puerco and the Rio Grande: about 1,700 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 La Jara; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
La Jara has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 La Jara normally reaches 54° and falls to 23°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.43 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1938 at Cuba, 6 miles south, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
