The Tecolote 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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76° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1983. Next is 75° in 1989.
Tecolote’s center stands about 6,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,220 ft to 6,940 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Barillas Peak, about 9,360 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Permian and Pennsylvanian rocks, undivided (sandstone, limestone, dolostone), from the Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Sandstone, limestone, dolostone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Arenite, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, carbonate, evaporite. Age: Permian, 273 to 290 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 273 to 290 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Plutonic. Age: Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Tecolote reaches the Gulf of America by way of Tecolote Creek, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 1,480 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 Tecolote; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tecolote has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in June; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 17 inches of water.
On November 14 Tecolote normally reaches 59° and falls to 20°. The record high is 75°, in 1999; the record low 10°, in 2000. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1983 at Las Vegas Waste Water Plant, 8 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
