The Birmingham 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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−1° on Nov. 13, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 1° in 1959.
Birmingham’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 780 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower Cherokee Group and Raccoon Creek Group (shale, sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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 17 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million 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 Birmingham reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cedar Creek, the Skunk and the Mississippi: about 1,450 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Birmingham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Birmingham has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 23 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Birmingham normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 75°, in 1990; the record low 8°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.32 in, fell in 1931.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Keosauqua, 9 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
