The Templeton 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.
−10° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −8° in 1986.
Templeton’s center stands about 1,450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,310 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Marmaton Group (shale, limestone), from the Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old.
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.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 315 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 0.7 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 Templeton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Brushy Creek, the South Raccoon, the North Raccoon, the Des Moines and the Mississippi: about 1,640 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 Templeton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Templeton 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 Templeton 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 north-northeast, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.