The Sundown 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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3.62 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1927. The next wettest, 2.90 inches, fell in 1958.
Sundown’s center stands about 820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pinnacle, about 1,470 ft, 14 miles 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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 26×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.1 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 Sundown reaches the Gulf of America by way of the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,050 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 Sundown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sundown has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Sundown normally reaches 58° and falls to 35°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 7°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 2.70 in, fell in 1958.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1927 at Lead Hill, 19 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
