The Fairdealing 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.
5.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 4.49 inches, fell in 1921.
Fairdealing’s center stands about 460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 310 ft to 530 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pinhook Hill, about 780 ft, 11 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Roubidoux Formation (sandstone, chert), 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 49×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 9 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 Fairdealing reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Black, the Current, the Black River, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,040 river miles.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairdealing; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairdealing has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fairdealing normally reaches 58° and falls to 37°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 2.12 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Poplar Bluff Area threaded record (Poplar Bluff Municipal Airport, 18 miles east-northeast, 130 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.