The Houston 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; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
4.63 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 4.10 inches, fell in 2003.
Houston’s center stands about 1,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,000 ft to 1,320 ft, a difference of 320 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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 38×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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 Houston reaches the Gulf of America by way of Brushy Creek, the Big Piney, the Gasconade, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,460 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 Houston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Houston has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Houston normally reaches 57° and falls to 36°. The record high is 82°, in 1955; the record low 8°, in 1907. The most rain on this date, 2.50 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Houston, 3 miles east-northeast, 100 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
