The Salem 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
5.49 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1904. The next wettest, 5.05 inches, fell in 2003.
Salem’s center stands about 670 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 930 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wallace Knob, about 1,120 ft, 2 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cotter and Jefferson City Dolomites (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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 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.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 22 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.5 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 Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of Town Creek, the South Fork Spring, the Spring, the Black River, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,030 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 Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 60° and falls to 34°. The record high is 81°, in 1999; the record low 11°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1904 at Mammoth Spring, 18 miles east-northeast, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
