The Idalia 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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−7° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is −4° in 1955.
Idalia’s center stands about 3,970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,880 ft to 4,020 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eolian deposits (sand, silt), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Idalia reaches the Gulf of America by way of Armknecht Creek, the South Fork Republican, the Republican, the Kansas, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,180 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Harlan County Lake and Swanson Lake.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Idalia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Idalia has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Idalia normally reaches 54° and falls to 26°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low −7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.05 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Bonny Dam 2 NE, 10 miles east-southeast, 250 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
