The Allen 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
81° on Nov. 12, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1897. Next is 79° in 1949.
Allen’s center stands about 1,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,220 ft to 1,450 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gun Barrel Hill, about 1,590 ft, 11 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Admire Group (shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 48×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 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 Allen reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hill Creek, One Hundred and Fortytwo Mile Creek, the Marais des Cygnes, the Osage, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,800 river miles.
Lake on the way: Melvern Lake.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Allen; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Allen has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Allen normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 76°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 3.41 in, fell in 1931.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1897 at Eskridge, 15 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
