The Manzano 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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79° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 74° in 1906.
Manzano’s center stands about 6,860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,600 ft to 7,650 ft, a difference of 1,050 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Manzano Peak, about 10,050 ft, 7 miles west-southwest.
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 7 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist, metarhyolite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.7 to 1.7 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.7 to 1.7 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, muscovite-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 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. 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 Manzano reaches the desert basins of the Rio Grande country by way of the Arroyo de Manzano: about 20 river miles. The desert basins of the Rio Grande country has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 100% 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 Manzano; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Manzano has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in June; winter nights fall to about 22° in December. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Manzano normally reaches 57° and falls to 30°. The record high is 79°, in 2025; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.49 in, fell in 1910.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Mountainair, 10 miles south-southeast, 340 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
