The Van Buren 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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8.48 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1946. The next wettest, 4.29 inches, fell in 2015.
Van Buren’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 940 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Thorny Mountain, about 1,370 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eminence Dolomite, Potosi Dolomite (dolostone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 497 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 30×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 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 Van Buren reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Current, the Black River, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,060 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 Van Buren; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Van Buren has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Van Buren normally reaches 58° and falls to 35°. The record high is 80°, in 1955; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Clearwater Dam, 16 miles northeast, 180 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
