The Roland 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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Showers likely
−7° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 3° in 2005.
Roland’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,090 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 56×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian to Late Mississippian, 324 to 347 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 3 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 Roland reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bear Creek, the South Skunk, the Skunk and the Mississippi: about 1,610 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Roland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Roland has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Roland normally reaches 48° and falls to 27°. The record high is 74°, in 2025; the record low 9°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.15 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Ames Municipal Airport, 13 miles south-southwest, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
