The Salem 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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4.76 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1903. The next wettest, 4.11 inches, fell in 1993.
Salem’s center stands about 1,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,120 ft to 1,320 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tower Hill, about 1,420 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gasconade Dolomite (dolostone), 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 43×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 1 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 Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of Spring Creek, the Dry Fork, the Meramec and the Mississippi: about 1,370 river miles.
1,130 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 56° and falls to 35°. The record high is 81°, in 1999; the record low 9°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 3.92 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 at Salem, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
