The Rankin 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.
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy; cooler
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
88° on Nov. 17, 2021, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1932. Next is 87° in 1938.
Rankin’s center stands about 2,540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,450 ft to 2,710 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Square Top Mountain, about 3,020 ft, 11 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 32×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 113 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, marl. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Claystone, limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 0.6 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 Rankin reaches the Gulf of America by way of Fivemile Creek, the Pecos and the Rio Grande: about 810 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake and Amistad Reservoir.
270 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rankin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rankin has a hot semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in June; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Rankin normally reaches 70° and falls to 43°. The record high is 85°, in 2011; the record low 14°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1932 at Mccamey, 18 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
