The Westphalia 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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−2° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 7° in 1959.
Westphalia’s center stands about 460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 550 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sefert Hill, about 700 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carbondale Group (shale, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
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 24 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 Westphalia reaches the Gulf of America by way of Black Creek, the White River, Big Bayou, the Wabash River Old Channel, the Old Channel Wabash, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,270 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 Westphalia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Westphalia has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Westphalia normally reaches 56° and falls to 37°. The record high is 78°, in 1931; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 4.64 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Washington 1 W, 15 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
