The Sunshine 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
Sunny
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Mostly sunny
9° on Nov. 14, 1976, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1920. Next is 17° in 2018.
Sunshine’s center stands about 4,240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,210 ft to 4,280 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Florida Peak, about 7,360 ft, 8 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. 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 0.1 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Plutonic. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 3.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sedimentary. Age: Cambrian to Silurian, 422 to 542 million years old. About 0.9 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.
Sunshine has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in June; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 9 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sunshine normally reaches 67° and falls to 35°. The record high is 83°, in 2017; the record low 9°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 2004.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1920 at Deming Municipal Airport, 9 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
