The Poplar Bluff 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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5.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 4.49 inches, fell in 1921.
Poplar Bluff’s center stands about 360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 320 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Roubidoux Formation (sandstone, chert), 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 58×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.4 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 Poplar Bluff reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pike Creek, Pike Slough, Big Hunting Slough, the Black River, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,070 river miles.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Poplar Bluff; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Poplar Bluff has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Poplar Bluff normally reaches 58° and falls to 37°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 2.12 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Poplar Bluff Area threaded record (Poplar Bluff Municipal Airport, 4 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
