The South Fork 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
85° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 84° in 1989.
South Fork’s center stands about 1,090 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,160 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Payne Knob, about 1,290 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
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.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. 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 22 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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 South Fork reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Fork Spring, the Spring, 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 South Fork; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Fork has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 South Fork normally reaches 57° and falls to 34°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 3.85 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at West Plains, 8 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
