The Willard 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.
79° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 74° in 1906.
Willard’s center stands about 6,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 6,060 ft to 6,200 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mesa de los Jumanos, about 6,920 ft, 10 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lacustrine and playa-lake deposits (unconsolidated), from the Holocene, less than 12,000 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.
Unconsolidated. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, carbonate, evaporite. Age: Permian, 273 to 290 million years old. About 0.5 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.
Willard has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in June; winter nights fall to about 22° in December. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 13 inches of water.
On November 14 Willard normally reaches 57° and falls to 30°. The record high is 79°, in 2025; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.49 in, fell in 1910.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Mountainair, 14 miles west-southwest, 420 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.