The Rio Rancho 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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77° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1994. Next is 76° in 1999.
Rio Rancho’s center stands about 5,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,000 ft to 5,560 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Sandia Peak, about 10,380 ft, 12 miles east.
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 4×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 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.
Granitic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, muscovite-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, 5.3 to 28 million years old. About 0.4 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 Rio Rancho reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Arroyo de los Montoyas and the Rio Grande: about 1,580 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 Rio Rancho; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rio Rancho has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 10 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1994 at Petroglyph Natl Mon, 7 miles south-southwest, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
