The Menlo 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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79° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 75° in 1941.
Menlo’s center stands about 1,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,100 ft to 1,310 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bronson Group (limestone, shale), from the Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 299 to 315 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 38×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 299 to 315 million years old. About 3 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 Menlo reaches the Gulf of America by way of Deer Creek, the South Raccoon, the North Raccoon, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,590 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 Menlo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Menlo has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Menlo normally reaches 48° and falls to 26°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low −3°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.24 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Guthrie Center, 11 miles north-northwest, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
