The Valley Springs 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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4.07 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1891. The next wettest, 2.86 inches, fell in 1958.
Valley Springs’s center stands about 1,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,540 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Boat Mountain, about 2,220 ft, 4 miles southwest.
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 5 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.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 Valley Springs reaches the Gulf of America by way of Elm Branch, Hog Creek, Clear Creek, Crooked Creek, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,070 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 Valley Springs; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Valley Springs has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Valley Springs normally reaches 60° and falls to 38°. The record high is 80°, in 1955; the record low 5°, in 1908. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Harrison, 7 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
