The Midland 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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−14° on Nov. 14, 1997, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1959. Next is −10° in 2000.
Midland’s center stands about 9,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,560 ft to 10,840 ft, a difference of 2,280 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pikes Peak, about 14,100 ft, 6 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rocks of Pikes Peak Batholith (1000-m.y. age group) (granite, alkali-feldspar-granite), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite, alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite, granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Eocene to Oligocene, 23 to 56 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Andesite. Age: Late Eocene to Early Oligocene, 30 to 35 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Late Eocene, 35 to 36 million years old. About 0.5 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 Midland reaches the Gulf of America by way of Fourmile Creek, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,950 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
1,010 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Midland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Midland has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 74° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 134 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 24 inches of water.
On November 14 Midland normally reaches 46° and falls to 20°. The record high is 60°, in 2007; the record low −14°, in 1997. The most rain on this date, 0.62 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Ruxton Park, 10 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
