The Memphis 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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0° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1930. Next is 2° in 1940.
Memphis’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Riverton Formation, Burgner Formation (shale, siltstone, mudstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 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, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 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 Memphis reaches the Gulf of America by way of Gunns Branch, the North Fabius, the Fabius and the Mississippi: about 1,370 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Memphis; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Memphis 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 Memphis 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, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
