The Peña Blanca 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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78° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1975. Next is 78° in 2025.
Peña Blanca’s center stands about 5,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,180 ft to 5,510 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tres Cerros, about 8,910 ft, 15 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Santa Fe Group (conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 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 9×. 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 Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Pleistocene, 1.8 to 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 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.
Dacite, andesite, rhyolite. Age: Tertiary Neogene, 2.6 to 23 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. 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 Peña Blanca reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Grande: about 1,600 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 Peña Blanca; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Peña Blanca has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Peña Blanca normally reaches 61° and falls to 29°. The record high is 75°, in 2017; the record low 17°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.34 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1975 at Cochiti Dam, 5 miles north, 280 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
