The San Luis 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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75° on Nov. 11, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is 74° in 1973.
San Luis’s center stands about 6,240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,140 ft to 6,580 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pajarito Peak, about 9,020 ft, 11 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Satan Tongue of Mancos Shale, from the Late Cretaceous, 84 to 87 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 7×. 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, 84 to 87 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, shale, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 87 million years old. About 0.8 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 San Luis reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Puerco and the Rio Grande: about 1,660 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 San Luis; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
San Luis has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 10 inches of water.
On November 14 San Luis normally reaches 56° and falls to 25°. The record high is 70°, in 2025; the record low 10°, in 1993. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Torreon Navajo Mission, 11 miles northwest, 460 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
