The Moulton 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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78° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1970. Next is 76° in 2001.
Moulton’s center stands about 1,000 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 880 ft to 990 ft, a difference of 110 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 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.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 0.9 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 Moulton reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Fox Creek, the Fox River and the Mississippi: about 1,430 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Moulton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Moulton has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Moulton normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 73°, in 1989; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1970 at Rathbun Dam, 15 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
