The Gasconade 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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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.
Gasconade’s center stands about 530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 500 ft to 920 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Negro Hill, about 950 ft, 9 miles northeast.
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 41×. 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 15 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 million years old. About 0.9 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 Gasconade reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Gasconade, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,270 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gasconade; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gasconade 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 Gasconade 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, 17 miles south-southwest, 280 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
