The Ireland 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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4.78 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1908. The next wettest, 3.90 inches, fell in 1985.
Ireland’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 550 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Harbison Hills, about 760 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Raccoon Creek Group (shale, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 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, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 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 Ireland reaches the Gulf of America by way of Altar Creek, the Patoka, Big Bayou, the Wabash River Old Channel, the Old Channel Wabash, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,260 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ireland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ireland has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Ireland normally reaches 57° and falls to 35°. The record high is 80°, in 1955; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.77 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Shoals 8 S, 15 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
