The Manzanola 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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84° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1915. Next is 82° in 1989.
Manzanola’s center stands about 4,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,210 ft to 4,470 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Nero Hill, about 4,620 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gravels and alluviums (gravel, unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 40×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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 Manzanola reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,800 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
910 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Manzanola; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Manzanola has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 11 inches of water.
On November 14 Manzanola normally reaches 57° and falls to 22°. The record high is 78°, in 2025; the record low 10°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 0.71 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1915 at Ordway 4 W, 8 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
