The Fairfax 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
−1° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 0° in 1940.
Fairfax’s center stands about 940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 880 ft to 1,090 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Brickyard Hill, about 1,170 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Wabaunsee Group (shale, siltstone, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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 9 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, 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 Fairfax reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Tarkio, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,680 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 Fairfax; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfax has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 32 inches of water.
On November 14 Fairfax normally reaches 52° and falls to 30°. The record high is 77°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 2.55 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Auburn 5 ESE, 19 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
