The Barnum 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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77° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1899. Next is 76° in 2012.
Barnum’s center stands about 1,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,100 ft to 1,210 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Manson Group, Terrace Terrane (Megablock Zone); Manson Impact Structure (sedimentary-breccia, shale), from the Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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 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.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sedimentary-breccia, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sedimentary-breccia, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gypsum, claystone, sandstone. Age: Late Jurassic, 158 to 164 million years old. About 0.3 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 Barnum reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Branch Lizard Creek, Lizard Creek, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,660 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Roberts Creek and Big Creek Pounding Area.
1,330 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Barnum; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Barnum has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Barnum normally reaches 46° and falls to 26°. The record high is 77°, in 1999; the record low −6°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.35 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Fort Dodge 5 NNW, 10 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
