The Silex 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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4° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is 6° in 1986.
Silex’s center stands about 570 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 500 ft to 730 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buffalo Knob, about 1,030 ft, 11 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Kinderhookian Series (limestone, siltstone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 37×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 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. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Silex reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the North Fork Cuivre, the Cuivre and the Mississippi: about 1,260 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Silex; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Silex has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 16 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 41 inches of water.
On November 14 Silex normally reaches 53° and falls to 34°. The record high is 79°, in 1989; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.06 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 at Bowling Green 1 E, 16 miles north-northwest, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
