The Las Vegas 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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76° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1983. Next is 75° in 1989.
Las Vegas’s center stands about 6,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,340 ft to 6,920 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hermit Peak, about 10,290 ft, 15 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Graneros Shale (black-shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arenite, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 94 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granitic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.7 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 9 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 Las Vegas reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Arroyo Pecos, the Gallinas, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 1,490 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 Las Vegas; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Las Vegas has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in June; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Las Vegas normally reaches 59° and falls to 20°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low 10°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1983 at Las Vegas Waste Water Plant, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
