The Meridian 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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−11° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1918. Next is −9° in 1955.
Meridian’s center stands about 5,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,700 ft to 6,270 ft, a difference of 570 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Carpenter Peak, about 7,130 ft, 15 miles southwest.
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 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.
Arkose, conglomerate, shale. Age: Paleocene to Eocene, 34 to 66 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Arkose, shale, mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 56 to 100 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.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.2 to 1.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 0.9 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 Meridian reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cottonwood Creek, Cherry Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,420 river miles.
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 Meridian; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Meridian has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Meridian normally reaches 55° and falls to 26°. The record high is 79°, in 1933; the record low −6°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.78 in, fell in 1994.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1918 at Kassler, 13 miles west-southwest, 390 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
