The Donnellson 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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2° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 6° in 1986.
Donnellson’s center stands about 710 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 720 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows St. Louis and Pella Formations (dolostone, limestone), from the Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 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.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, siltstone. Age: Early Mississippian, 347 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 374 million years old. About 0.5 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 Donnellson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Painter Creek, Sugar Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Donnellson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Donnellson has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Donnellson normally reaches 50° and falls to 33°. The record high is 74°, in 1971; the record low 10°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 2.38 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Fort Madison, 12 miles east, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
