The El Paso 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
72° on Nov. 14, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is 69° in 1953.
El Paso’s center stands about 920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 870 ft to 1,150 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tuttle Hill, about 1,220 ft, 10 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie du Chien Group (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 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 El Paso reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cave Creek, the Rush and the Mississippi: about 1,770 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of El Paso; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
El Paso has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 El Paso normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Ellsworth 1 E, 6 miles west-southwest, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
