The Tierra Amarilla 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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−10° on Nov. 13, 2000, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −9° in 1955.
Tierra Amarilla’s center stands about 7,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,230 ft to 8,260 ft, a difference of 1,030 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Grouse Mesa, about 11,420 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mancos Shale, from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. 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, 72 to 100 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.7 to 1.7 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Tierra Amarilla reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rito de Tierra Amarilla, the Rio Chama and the Rio Grande: about 1,740 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Elephant Butte Reservoir and El Vado 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 Tierra Amarilla; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tierra Amarilla has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 92 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 22 inches of water.
On November 14 Tierra Amarilla normally reaches 48° and falls to 18°. The record high is 74°, in 1894; the record low −6°, in 1938. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Chama, 15 miles north, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
