The Zinc 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
3.62 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1927. The next wettest, 2.90 inches, fell in 1958.
Zinc’s center stands about 890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,290 ft, a difference of 500 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Boat Mountain, about 2,220 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Powell Dolomite (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.7 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 Zinc reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sugar Orchard Creek, Crooked Creek, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,060 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 Zinc; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Zinc has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Zinc normally reaches 58° and falls to 35°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 7°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 2.70 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1927 at Lead Hill, 9 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
