The Silver City 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Showers likely; cooler
Sunny
Showers likely
Showers likely
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 13, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 75° in 1995.
Silver City’s center stands about 5,080 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,340 ft to 6,810 ft, a difference of 2,470 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Slide Mountain, about 9,650 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Younger andesite and intermediate flows and breccias (andesite, dacite), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 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.
Andesite, dacite. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Volcanic, carbonate, clastic. Age: Middle Triassic to Middle Jurassic, 164 to 247 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 0.3 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.
Silver City has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 7 inches of water.
On November 14 Silver City normally reaches 57° and falls to 31°. The record high is 74°, in 2016; the record low 4°, in 1985. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Reno Area threaded record (Reno Airport, 18 miles north-northwest, 680 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
