The Roswell 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
89° on Nov. 17, 2017, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 86° in 2021.
Roswell’s center stands about 3,580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,530 ft to 3,640 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Haystack Mountain, about 4,070 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 26×. 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 17 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, anhydrite, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 273 million years old. About 0.5 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 Roswell reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Hondo, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 1,220 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Red Bluff Reservoir and Lake McMillan.
410 miles of the trip are on the Pecos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Roswell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Roswell has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in June; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 12 inches of water.
On November 14 Roswell normally reaches 66° and falls to 37°. The record high is 84°, in 1988; the record low 6°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.56 in, fell in 2004.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Roswell Area threaded record (Roswell Industrial Air Park, 6 miles south). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
