The Elkhart 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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−6° on Nov. 14, 1916, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1900. Next is 2° in 1911.
Elkhart’s center stands about 3,600 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,530 ft to 3,670 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Loess (silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 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 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 4 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.
Elkhart has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Elkhart normally reaches 59° and falls to 32°. The record high is 84°, in 2005; the record low −6°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 2003.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1900 at Elkhart, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
