The Columbia 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
79° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1936. Next is 76° in 1985.
Columbia’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 870 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Matney, about 910 ft, 7 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 41×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.1 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 Columbia reaches the Gulf of America by way of Russell Creek, the Green River, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,480 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 Columbia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Columbia has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 57 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 5 inches of snow.
On November 14 Columbia normally reaches 57° and falls to 33°. The record high is 76°, in 1993; the record low 14°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.23 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1936 at Jamestown Wwtp, 15 miles east-southeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
