The Simpson 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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5° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1941. Next is 9° in 1986.
Simpson’s center stands about 400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 740 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Deputy Hill, about 650 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Pope Group (Tar Springs Sandstone through Kinkaid Limestone) (limestone, sandstone, shale), from the Late Mississippian, 324 to 331 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 40×. 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, sandstone, shale. Age: Late Mississippian, 324 to 331 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian, 315 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 0.8 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 Simpson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cedar Creek, Bay Creek, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,070 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Simpson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Simpson has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Simpson normally reaches 58° and falls to 38°. The record high is 75°, in 2025; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.01 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Dixon Springs Agric Cntr, 5 miles east-southeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
