The Gilman City 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.
4.13 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1957. The next wettest, 2.04 inches, fell in 2009.
Gilman City’s center stands about 980 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 850 ft to 990 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Kansas City Group (limestone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 64×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 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 Gilman City reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big Muddy Creek, the Grand River, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,520 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 Gilman City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gilman City has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Gilman City normally reaches 51° and falls to 31°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.44 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1957 at Spickard 7 W, 11 miles northeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.