The Washington Park 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.
85° on Nov. 11, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1874. Next is 83° in 2016.
Washington Park’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 400 ft to 510 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Clarks Mound, about 670 ft, 4 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower Pope Group (Aux Vases Sandstone through Glen Dean Limestone) (limestone, sandstone, shale), from the Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 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.
Limestone, sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 2 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.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 307 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. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Washington Park reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Mississippi: about 1,160 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Washington Park; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Washington Park has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 17 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Washington Park normally reaches 56° and falls to 38°. The record high is 81°, in 1971; the record low 13°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.86 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1874 from the St Louis Area threaded record (St Louis Lambert International Airport, 17 miles west-northwest, 100 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.