The Crab Orchard 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.
Sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
9° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is 10° in 1986.
Crab Orchard’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 590 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carbondale Formation (shale, sandstone, coal), from the Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 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 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, limestone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, coal. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, limestone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 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 Crab Orchard reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Crab Orchard Creek, Crab Orchard Creek, the Big Muddy and the Mississippi: about 1,140 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Crab Orchard; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Crab Orchard has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Crab Orchard normally reaches 58° and falls to 37°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 at Harrisburg, 15 miles east, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
