The Birmingham 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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Chance of showers
3.79 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1934. The next wettest, 1.97 inches, fell in 1961.
Birmingham’s center stands about 740 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Nebo Hill, about 950 ft, 6 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Holocene series (clay, silt, sand), from the Holocene, less than 12,000 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 54×. 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, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 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 Birmingham reaches the Gulf of America by way of Shoal Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,520 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Birmingham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Birmingham has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 11 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Birmingham normally reaches 55° and falls to 37°. The record high is 81°, in 1964; the record low 10°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.52 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Kansas City Downtown Airport, 8 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
