The Belle 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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6.25 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1897. The next wettest, 3.02 inches, fell in 1992.
Belle’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 750 ft to 1,070 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pennsylvanian Undifferentiated (shale, limestone, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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.
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 Belle reaches the Gulf of America by way of Klein Branch, the Dry Fork, the Bourbeuse, the Meramec and the Mississippi: about 1,330 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Belle; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Belle has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Belle normally reaches 56° and falls to 36°. The record high is 78°, in 2025; the record low 11°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 2.41 in, fell in 2020.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1897 at Vichy Rolla Natl Airport, 11 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
