The Matheson 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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−21° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −15° in 1955.
Matheson’s center stands about 5,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,740 ft to 6,110 ft, a difference of 370 ft: rolling country.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. 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, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Arkose, shale, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, claystone, sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. 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. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Matheson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big Sandy Creek, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,860 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
800 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Matheson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Matheson has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 15 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Matheson normally reaches 53° and falls to 18°. The record high is 76°, in 2025; the record low −5°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.54 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Limon, 18 miles east-northeast, 480 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
