The Preston 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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3.77 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1961. The next wettest, 2.48 inches, fell in 1985.
Preston’s center stands about 1,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 900 ft to 1,110 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Smithville Dolomite, Powell Dolomite, Cotter Dolomite, Jefferson City Dolomite (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 24 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 Preston reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the Pomme de Terre, the Osage, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,520 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Preston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Preston has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Preston normally reaches 57° and falls to 37°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.55 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Pomme De Terre Dam, 6 miles west-southwest, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
