The Lake Ozark 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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5.94 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.17 inches, fell in 1985.
Lake Ozark’s center stands about 650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 550 ft to 890 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is High Point, about 960 ft, 15 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gasconade 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 43×. 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 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.3 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 Lake Ozark reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Osage, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,370 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 Lake Ozark; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lake Ozark has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lake Ozark normally reaches 56° and falls to 36°. The record high is 84°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.22 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Eldon, 11 miles north-northeast, 270 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
