The Omaha 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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9° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is 10° in 1986.
Omaha’s center stands about 400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 490 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gold Hill, about 770 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Shelburn-Patoka Formations undivided (shale, limestone), from the Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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 15 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, limestone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, coal. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 0.2 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 Omaha reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cane Creek, the North Fork Saline, the Saline, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,120 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Omaha; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Omaha 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 Omaha 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, 16 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
