The Salem 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
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.50 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1980. The next wettest, 3.44 inches, fell in 2011.
Salem’s center stands about 460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 670 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hardin Knob, about 860 ft, 4 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis Limestones, undivided, from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
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 40×. 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 17 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.6 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 Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of Sandy Creek, the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,050 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 58° and falls to 37°. The record high is 77°, in 1999; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.47 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1980 at Smithland Lock & Dam, 13 miles west-southwest, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
