The Quemado 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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−4° on Nov. 17, 1952, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1915. Next is −3° in 1956.
Quemado’s center stands about 6,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,810 ft to 7,440 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Escondido Mountain, about 9,810 ft, 10 miles south.
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 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. 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, shale. Age: Tertiary Paleogene, 23 to 66 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clastic, unconsolidated. Age: Late Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 38 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 94 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basaltic-andesite, andesite. Age: Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, 22 to 26 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Quemado reaches the Gulf of California by way of Largo Creek, Carrizo Wash, the Little Colorado and the Colorado: about 1,100 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Little Colorado.
Often dry. About 30% 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 Quemado; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Quemado has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in June; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Quemado normally reaches 56° and falls to 22°. The record high is 76°, in 1967; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 1918.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1915 at Quemado, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
