The Ricketts 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
77° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1937. Next is 76° in 1953.
Ricketts’s center stands about 1,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,240 ft to 1,480 ft, a difference of 240 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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 1 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 Ricketts reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Soldier, the East Soldier, the Soldier, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,860 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ricketts; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ricketts has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 32 inches of water.
On November 14 Ricketts normally reaches 47° and falls to 25°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low −13°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.73 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1937 at Mapleton No.2, 10 miles west-northwest, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
