The Sparta 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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81° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is 80° in 1911.
Sparta’s center stands about 1,400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,190 ft to 1,440 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Keyger Mountain, about 1,660 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Osagean Series (limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 35×. 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.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Sparta reaches the Gulf of America by way of Finley Creek, the James, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,240 river miles.
Lake on the way: Table Rock Lake.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sparta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sparta has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Sparta normally reaches 58° and falls to 37°. The record high is 78°, in 1973; the record low 10°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.98 in, fell in 1924.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 from the Springfield Area threaded record (Springfield Airport, 24 miles northwest, 140 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
