The Ojo Caliente 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. 15, 1975, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1953. Next is 79° in 1999.
Ojo Caliente’s center stands about 6,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,120 ft to 7,450 ft, a difference of 1,330 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Valle Grande Peak, about 8,580 ft, 11 miles northwest.
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 10 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, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, conglomerate. Age: Late Oligocene to Miocene, 5.3 to 28 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, shale. Age: Tertiary Paleogene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million 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. 4 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 Ojo Caliente reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Arroyo el Rito, the Cañada Ancha, the Rio Chama and the Rio Grande: about 1,660 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 Ojo Caliente; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ojo Caliente has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 11 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Ojo Caliente normally reaches 56° and falls to 22°. The record high is 76°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.56 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1953 at Alcalde, 15 miles south, 570 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
