The Manila 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.
5.21 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1959. The next wettest, 4.38 inches, fell in 2015.
Manila’s center stands about 250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 230 ft to 280 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Terrace deposits (coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 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 Manila reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Right Hand Chute Little, Iron Mines Creek, the Saint Francis and the Mississippi: about 870 river miles.
690 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Manila; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Manila has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 Manila normally reaches 61° and falls to 41°. The record high is 81°, in 1964; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.72 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Keiser, 15 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.