The Cross Timbers 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.
3.77 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1961. The next wettest, 2.48 inches, fell in 1985.
Cross Timbers’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 1,070 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. 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 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.4 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 Cross Timbers reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Mill Creek, the Pomme de Terre, the Osage, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,500 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 Cross Timbers; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cross Timbers has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cross Timbers normally reaches 57° and falls to 37°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.55 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Pomme De Terre Dam, 10 miles south-southwest, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.