The Totah Vista 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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72° on Nov. 17, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1941. Next is 70° in 1967.
Totah Vista’s center stands about 5,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,230 ft to 5,960 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pinon Mesa, about 6,180 ft, 9 miles north-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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. 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, shale, conglomerate. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, shale. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million 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.
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 Totah Vista reaches the Gulf of California by way of the San Juan and the Colorado: about 1,110 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Totah Vista; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Totah Vista has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 8 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Totah Vista normally reaches 55° and falls to 28°. The record high is 70°, in 2025; the record low 13°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.27 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Farmington Four Corners Regional Airport, 3 miles north-northwest, 240 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
