The Watrous 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.
Chance of showers
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77° on Nov. 16, 1981, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1940. Next is 77° in 1999.
Watrous’s center stands about 6,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,350 ft to 6,710 ft, a difference of 360 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Baldy Mountain, about 7,390 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
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 24×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arenite, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 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 Watrous reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Mora, the Canadian, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,880 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Conchas Lake, Murray Lake, Ozark Lake and Ute Reservoir.
720 miles of the trip are on the Canadian.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Watrous; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Watrous has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. About 16 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Watrous normally reaches 56° and falls to 26°. The record high is 77°, in 1999; the record low 5°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1940 at Las Vegas Municipal Airport, 13 miles southwest, 440 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
