The Cincinnati 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.
4.52 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1949. The next wettest, 3.91 inches, fell in 1993.
Cincinnati’s center stands about 1,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,000 ft to 1,410 ft, a difference of 410 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Stevenson Mountain, about 1,850 ft, 15 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Boone Formation (limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Chert, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.4 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 Cincinnati reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cincinnati Creek, the Illinois, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,080 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake, Tenkiller Ferry Lake and Ozark Lake.
600 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cincinnati; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cincinnati has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Cincinnati normally reaches 60° and falls to 36°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 14°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.99 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Fayetteville Drake Field, 19 miles east, 180 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.