The nearly flat surface of the county has insignificant drainage. Rainfall is collected in many large and small playas. Several small gullies head along Concho Bluff, a west-facing escarpment, which defines the edge of the Caprock. Vegetation consists of grasses, scrub brush, creosotebush, cacti, qv and scattered mottes of willows and wild plums. Altitudes vary from 2,671 to 3,193 feet above sea level.
Average rainfall is twelve inches per year.
The growing season extends 220 days. Large annual yields of oil and gas place the county among the leading petroleum producers in the state. The first people to live in the area of Winkler County were the Anasazi Indians, who migrated there about 900 and left their discarded pottery as evidence of their presence. At some later time, the Apaches etched a trail across the county from Monument Springs in New Mexico to Shafter Lake in the area of present Andrews County. After the Apaches, the Comanche Indians moved into the White Sandhills and Blue Mountain areas of the county territory, using them as meeting places from the seventeenth century until the 1870s.