The Sparta 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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5.01 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1959. The next wettest, 3.24 inches, fell in 1993.
Sparta’s center stands about 510 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 480 ft to 880 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Potato Bug Hill, about 920 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium (sand, silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
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 36×. 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: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.4 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.
A raindrop that lands in Sparta reaches the Gulf of America by way of Eagle Creek, the Kentucky, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,430 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 Sparta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sparta has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Sparta normally reaches 57° and falls to 34°. The record high is 74°, in 2011; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.73 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Warsaw Markland Dam, 7 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
