The Istachatta 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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Sunny; warmer
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92° on Nov. 17, 1988, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 91° in 1921.
Istachatta’s center stands about 70 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 40 ft to 160 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chinsegut Hill, about 290 ft, 6 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ocala Limestone, from the Late Eocene, 34 to 38 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Late Eocene, 34 to 38 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 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.
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 Istachatta reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Withlacoochee: about 70 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Rousseau.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Istachatta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Istachatta has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 43° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Istachatta normally reaches 77° and falls to 52°. The record high is 88°, in 2008; the record low 32°, in 1984. The most rain on this date, 3.43 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Inverness 3 SE, 10 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
