The Buffalo 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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3° on Nov. 13, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is 3° in 2018.
Buffalo’s center stands about 1,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,200 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blue Mound, about 1,340 ft, 6 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Smithville Dolomite, Powell Dolomite, Cotter Dolomite, Jefferson City Dolomite (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 57×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 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 Buffalo reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Lindley Creek, Lindley Creek, the Pomme de Terre, the Osage, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,560 river miles.
Lake on the way: Pomme de Terre Lake.
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 Buffalo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Buffalo has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Buffalo normally reaches 57° and falls to 33°. The record high is 77°, in 1964; the record low 3°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 3.53 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 at Buffalo 2 N, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
