The Thunder Mountain 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.
Showers likely
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
71° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1991. Next is 70° in 2021.
Thunder Mountain’s center stands about 6,650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,520 ft to 7,160 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is South Sandia Peak, about 9,730 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
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 11 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 94 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 284 to 299 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 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.
Thunder Mountain has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 15 inches of water.
On November 14 Thunder Mountain normally reaches 55° and falls to 33°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low 15°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.29 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1991 at Albuquerque Foothills Ne, 15 miles west-northwest, 660 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
