Conejos County

Menkhaven ​History

GEOGRAPHY
Ac­cord­ing to the U.S. Cen­sus Bu­reau, the county has a total area of 1,291 square miles (3,340 km2), of which 1,287 square miles (3,330 km2) is land and 3.6 square miles (9.3 km2) (0.3%) is water.
Cone­jos County is in a broad high moun­tain val­ley in South Cen­tral Col­orado. It has an area of ap­prox­i­mately 825,446 acres (3,340 km2) in 1,290 square miles (3,340 km2). Roughly half the area is on the nearly level floor of the val­ley, where the av­er­age el­e­va­tion is about 7,700 feet (2,350 m). The west­ern half of the county ranges from gen­tly rolling to steep foothills with moun­tains that rise in el­e­va­tion to about 13,000 feet (4,000 m).Cone­jos County is sit­u­ated with the Na­tional For­est to the west and the Rio Grande to the east, along Col­orado’s south­ern bor­der with the state of New Mex­ico. Only about 34 per­cent of Cone­jos County is pri­vately owned with the other 66 per­cent being Na­tional For­est, Bu­reau of Land Man­age­ment (BLM) or State owned lands.ClimateIn win­ter, the av­er­age tem­per­a­ture is 21.6 de­grees Fahren­heit, and the av­er­age daily min­i­mum tem­per­a­ture is 4 de­grees. In sum­mer, the av­er­age tem­per­a­ture is 61.4 de­grees, and the av­er­age max­i­mum tem­per­a­ture is 79.6 de­grees.Sev­enty-one per­cent of the an­nual pre­cip­i­ta­tion falls in the months of April through Sep­tem­ber. Av­er­age sea­sonal snow­fall is 28 inches. The av­er­age rel­a­tive hu­mid­ity in mid-af­ter­noon in spring is less than 35 per­cent; dur­ing the rest of the year, it is about 45 per­cent. The per­cent­age of pos­si­ble sun­shine is 77 in the sum­mer and 73 in the win­ter.