The Jamaica 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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81° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is 78° in 2012.
Jamaica’s center stands about 1,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 960 ft to 1,090 ft, a difference of 130 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 2 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.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 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 Jamaica reaches the Gulf of America by way of Greenbrier Creek, the North Raccoon, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,610 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 Jamaica; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Jamaica has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Jamaica normally reaches 48° and falls to 27°. The record high is 81°, in 1999; the record low −3°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.12 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Perry, 10 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
