The Pearl 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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3.95 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1887. The next wettest, 3.65 inches, fell in 2009.
Pearl’s center stands about 600 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 420 ft to 680 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows New Albany Shale, Blocher Shale, Sylamore Sandstone, Selmier Shale, Sweetland Creek Shale, Grassy Creek Shale, Saverton Shale, and Louisiana Limestone, from the Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 388 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 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.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 388 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Early Mississippian, 347 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 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 Pearl reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hill Creek, the Illinois and the Mississippi: about 1,230 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pearl; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pearl has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Pearl normally reaches 53° and falls to 33°. The record high is 80°, in 1931; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1913.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at White Hall 1 E, 13 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
