The Dallas Center 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
−3° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1995. Next is 7° in 2005.
Dallas Center’s center stands about 1,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,070 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Marmaton Group (shale, limestone), from the Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 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 9 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 7 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 Dallas Center reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hickory Creek, the North Raccoon, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,580 river miles.
Lake on the way: Roberts Creek.
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 Dallas Center; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dallas Center has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Dallas Center normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 75°, in 2025; the record low 7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.17 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1995 at Des Moines Wsfo-Johnston, 13 miles east-northeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
