The Americus 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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80° on Nov. 12, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1979. Next is 80° in 1999.
Americus’s center stands about 1,160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,130 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (sand, silt, clay), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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 53×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Gravel. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 0.8 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 Americus reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pester Creek, Troublesome Creek, Dow Creek, the Neosho, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,390 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
600 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Americus; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Americus has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Americus normally reaches 55° and falls to 32°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low 5°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.95 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1979 at Emporia 3 NW, 6 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
