The Humeston 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.
77° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 74° in 2001.
Humeston’s center stands about 1,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,040 ft to 1,110 ft, a difference of 70 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, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 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 Humeston reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Chariton, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,610 river miles.
Lake on the way: Rathbun Lake.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Humeston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Humeston has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Humeston normally reaches 49° and falls to 29°. The record high is 77°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 at Allerton, 13 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.