The Lancaster 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
0° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1930. Next is 2° in 1940.
Lancaster’s center stands about 950 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 820 ft to 990 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Marmaton Group (limestone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 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.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 10 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 Lancaster reaches the Gulf of America by way of the North Fork Middle Fabius, the Middle Fabius, the North Fabius, the Fabius and the Mississippi: about 1,410 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lancaster; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lancaster has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 19 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Lancaster normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 77°, in 1958; the record low 3°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1930 at Memphis, 19 miles east-southeast, 250 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
