The Ralston 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
−10° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −8° in 1986.
Ralston’s center stands about 1,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,080 ft to 1,200 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Moses, about 1,360 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 58×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 4 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 Ralston reaches the Gulf of America by way of Otter Creek, the North Raccoon, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,650 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 Ralston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ralston has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ralston normally reaches 47° and falls to 27°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low −10°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.87 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Carroll, 11 miles west, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
