The Valley City 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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6° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1991. Next is 15° in 2005.
Valley City’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 420 ft to 640 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Calvert Hill, about 740 ft, 8 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Meppen Limestone, Fern Glen Formation, and Burlington-Keokuk Limestone, from the Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. 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, sandstone, coal. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 0.3 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 Valley City reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Illinois and the Mississippi: about 1,250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Valley City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Valley City has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 16 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1991 at Pittsfield No 2, 10 miles southwest, 250 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
