The Peru 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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84° on Nov. 11, 1949, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 84° in 1989.
Peru’s center stands about 790 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 760 ft to 990 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Berry Hill, about 1,040 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sand, silt, clay. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 0.5 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 Peru reaches the Gulf of America by way of Middle Caney Creek, the Little Caney, the Caney, the Verdigris, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,190 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake, Ozark Lake and Copan 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 Peru; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Peru has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Peru normally reaches 60° and falls to 35°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.15 in, fell in 1924.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Sedan, 6 miles west-northwest, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
