The Prairie Creek 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
3.64 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1890. The next wettest, 3.43 inches, fell in 1922.
Prairie Creek’s center stands about 1,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,110 ft to 1,410 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Whitney Mountain, about 1,820 ft, 9 miles east-northeast.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 37×. 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 24 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Prairie Creek reaches the Gulf of America by way of Beaver Lake, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,240 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Table Rock Lake and Beaver Lake.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Prairie Creek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Prairie Creek has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Prairie Creek normally reaches 59° and falls to 38°. The record high is 79°, in 1909; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 3.62 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1890 at Fayetteville Experiment Sta, 18 miles south-southwest, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
