The Paoli 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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80° on Nov. 16, 1941, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 80° in 1999.
Paoli’s center stands about 3,890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,840 ft to 3,940 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Marks Butte, about 4,060 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ogallala Fm (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 24 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 Paoli reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Fork Frenchman Creek, Frenchman Creek, the Republican, the Kansas, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,210 river miles.
Lake on the way: Harlan County 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 Paoli; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Paoli has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Paoli normally reaches 53° and falls to 22°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low −9°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.37 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Holyoke, 8 miles southeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
