The Union 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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5.76 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1980. The next wettest, 3.34 inches, fell in 1993.
Union’s center stands about 540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 500 ft to 820 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Enoch Knob, about 760 ft, 11 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 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 44×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units 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 Union reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Bourbeuse, the Meramec and the Mississippi: about 1,210 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Union; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Union has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° 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 Union normally reaches 56° and falls to 31°. The record high is 84°, in 1989; the record low 7°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 2.24 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1980 at Rosebud, 20 miles west, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
