The Organ 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
83° on Nov. 13, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 82° in 1980.
Organ’s center stands about 5,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,580 ft to 7,070 ft, a difference of 2,490 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Organ Peak, about 8,790 ft, 7 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Piedmont alluvial deposits (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granitic, syenitic. Age: Eocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 31 to 36 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Andesite, latite. Age: Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene, 33 to 43 million years old. About 0.3 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.
Organ has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in June; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. About 10 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Organ normally reaches 67° and falls to 30°. The record high is 80°, in 1973; the record low 12°, in 1979. The most rain on this date, 0.67 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 at Jornada Experiment Range, 15 miles north-northwest, 730 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
