The Phoenix 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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76° on Nov. 13, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 75° in 1999.
Phoenix’s center stands about 1,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,420 ft to 2,670 ft, a difference of 1,250 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ashland, about 7,480 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Conglomerate. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mudstone, graywacke. Age: Paleozoic to Jurassic, 145 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartz-diorite, diorite. Age: Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, 100 to 164 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gravel, boulders, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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. 3 smaller units 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 Phoenix reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Bear Creek and the Rogue: about 140 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Phoenix; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Phoenix has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 18 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 3 inches of snow.
On November 14 Phoenix normally reaches 54° and falls to 37°. The record high is 68°, in 1934; the record low 11°, in 1978. The most rain on this date, 1.43 in, fell in 1963.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 from the Medford Area threaded record (Medford International Airport, 8 miles north-northwest, 180 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
