The Sycamore 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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13° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1872. Next is 15° in 1986.
Sycamore’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 550 ft to 760 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gathright Hill, about 850 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Louisville Limestone and Waldron Shale, undivided, from the Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 44×. 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: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Sycamore reaches the Gulf of America by way of Middle Fork Beargrass Creek, Beargrass Creek, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,360 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 Sycamore; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sycamore has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 13 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Sycamore normally reaches 58° and falls to 40°. The record high is 79°, in 1902; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.44 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1872 from the Louisville Area threaded record (Louisville International Airport, 10 miles west-southwest, 220 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
