The Smeltertown 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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78° on Nov. 16, 1949, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 71° in 1999.
Smeltertown’s center stands about 7,140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,030 ft to 8,630 ft, a difference of 1,600 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Shavano, about 14,170 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gravel, unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.5 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gabbro, diorite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 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 Smeltertown reaches the Gulf of America by way of Ute Creek, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,960 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
1,070 miles of the trip are on the Arkansas.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Smeltertown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Smeltertown has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 49 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 10 inches of water.
On November 14 Smeltertown normally reaches 50° and falls to 20°. The record high is 72°, in 1949; the record low −15°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.20 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Buena Vista 2 S, 20 miles north-northwest, 810 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
