The Vinton 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.
26° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1969. Next is 29° in 1991.
Vinton’s center stands about 20 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 50 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie Terraces (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 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 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Clay, silt. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Clay, silt. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 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.
Vinton has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 40° in January. About 64 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Vinton normally reaches 70° and falls to 47°. The record high is 85°, in 2005; the record low 26°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.25 in, fell in 1998.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1969 at Orange 9 N, 10 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.