The Murphy 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.
Sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
3.43 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1975. The next wettest, 3.01 inches, fell in 2003.
Murphy’s center stands about 560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 870 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Frisco Hill, about 860 ft, 8 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Osagean Series (limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 36×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 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 Murphy reaches the Gulf of America by way of Saline Creek, the Meramec and the Mississippi: about 1,150 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Murphy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Murphy has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Murphy normally reaches 57° and falls to 36°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.64 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1975 at St Charles 7 SSW, 13 miles north, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
