The Norman 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.
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5.03 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1872. The next wettest, 4.22 inches, fell in 1958.
Norman’s center stands about 810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 1,310 ft, a difference of 650 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugartree Mountain, about 2,080 ft, 14 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Novaculite. Age: Late Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Norman reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Caddo, the Ouachita, the Black River, the Red River, the Atchafalaya and the Lower Atchafalaya: about 630 river miles.
Lake on the way: De Gray Lake.
360 miles of the trip are on the Ouachita.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Norman; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Norman has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 56 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Norman normally reaches 64° and falls to 40°. The record high is 84°, in 1955; the record low 10°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.82 in, fell in 1947.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1872 from the Mount Ida Area threaded record (Mount Ida, 8 miles northeast, 110 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
