The Ionia 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
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
3.05 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 2.78 inches, fell in 1985.
Ionia’s center stands about 960 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 880 ft to 1,030 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
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 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.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.2 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 Ionia reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Flat Creek, Flat Creek, the Lamine, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,480 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 Ionia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ionia has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 13 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Ionia normally reaches 54° and falls to 33°. The record high is 79°, in 1964; the record low 7°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.22 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Sedalia Water Plant, 13 miles north-northeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
