The Raton 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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2° on Nov. 13, 1997, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1953. Next is 4° in 2014.
Raton’s center stands about 6,670 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,480 ft to 8,030 ft, a difference of 1,550 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fishers Peak, about 9,620 ft, 13 miles north.
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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 90 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 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.
Conglomerate, sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 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. 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 Raton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Raton Creek, Chicorica Creek, the Canadian, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,950 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Conchas Lake, Murray Lake, Ozark Lake and Ute Reservoir.
720 miles of the trip are on the Canadian.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Raton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Raton has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 29 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 Raton normally reaches 53° and falls to 29°. The record high is 72°, in 2025; the record low 5°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.36 in, fell in 1970.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1953 at Raton Filter Plant, here, 260 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
