The Madrid 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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−5° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1964. Next is −4° in 1986.
Madrid’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 840 ft to 1,050 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Cherokee Group (shale, siltstone), from the Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 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 62×. 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.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 8 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 Madrid reaches the Gulf of America by way of Prairie Creek, Little Creek, Big Creek, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,560 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Roberts Creek and Big Creek Pounding Area.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Madrid; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Madrid has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 33 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Madrid normally reaches 48° and falls to 29°. The record high is 73°, in 2025; the record low 7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1964 at Ames 8 WSW, 10 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
