The Bland 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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5.74 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1962. The next wettest, 2.60 inches, fell in 1985.
Bland’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 1,050 ft, a difference of 340 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 34×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. 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 Bland reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Dry Fork, the Bourbeuse, the Meramec and the Mississippi: about 1,320 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bland has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Bland normally reaches 56° and falls to 34°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low 6°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Freedom, 12 miles north-northwest, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
