The Madison 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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−1° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 2° in 1932.
Madison’s center stands about 800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Weldon River-Warrensburg-Moberly Channel Sandstone, 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.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 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 Madison reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pedee Branch, Flat Creek, the Middle Fork Salt, the Salt River and the Mississippi: about 1,370 river miles.
Lake on the way: Mark Twain Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Madison; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Madison has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 16 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Madison normally reaches 53° and falls to 32°. The record high is 77°, in 1964; the record low 9°, in 1982. The most rain on this date, 1.07 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Shelbina, 17 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
