The Shirley 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
6.47 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1924. The next wettest, 5.11 inches, fell in 2003.
Shirley’s center stands about 550 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 510 ft to 1,310 ft, a difference of 800 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Clinton Mountain, about 1,840 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bloyd Shale, and Prairie Grove Member of the Hale Formation (shale, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
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 Shirley reaches the Gulf of America by way of Weaver Creek, the Little Red, the White River and the Mississippi: about 910 river miles.
Lake on the way: Greers Ferry 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 Shirley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Shirley has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 Shirley normally reaches 61° and falls to 39°. The record high is 79°, in 1990; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.83 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1924 at Mountain View, 18 miles northeast, 170 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
