The Big Clifty 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
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81° on Nov. 11, 2002, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1964. Next is 80° in 1989.
Big Clifty’s center stands about 750 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 830 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blueball Hill, about 1,030 ft, 15 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rocks of Chesterian age, lower part (limestone, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 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.
Limestone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 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 Big Clifty reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sugar Branch, Clifty Creek, the Rough, the Green River, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,370 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 Big Clifty; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Big Clifty has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 54 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 Big Clifty normally reaches 61° and falls to 34°. The record high is 77°, in 1989; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.18 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1964 at Nolin River Lake, 19 miles south-southwest, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
