The Jasper 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.
4.07 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1891. The next wettest, 2.86 inches, fell in 1958.
Jasper’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 2,090 ft, a difference of 1,280 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Shiloh Mountain, about 2,400 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows St. Peter Sanstone and Everton Formation (Middle Ordovician) (sandstone, dolostone), from the Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old.
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 12×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.3 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 Jasper reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Buffalo, the Buffalo, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,110 river miles.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Jasper; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Jasper has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Jasper normally reaches 60° and falls to 38°. The record high is 80°, in 1955; the record low 5°, in 1908. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Harrison, 13 miles north-northeast, 230 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.