The Rincon 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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83° on Nov. 13, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 82° in 1980.
Rincon’s center stands about 4,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,020 ft to 4,650 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Magdalena Peak, about 6,620 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
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 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 12 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Andesite, basaltic-andesite, basalt. Age: Early Oligocene to Late Oligocene, 26 to 29 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 1 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, clastic, andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 28 to 38 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.
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 Rincon reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Grande: about 1,330 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake and Amistad Reservoir.
730 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rincon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rincon 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 Rincon 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, 19 miles east-southeast, 250 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
