The Pope 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.
5.03 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1891. The next wettest, 4.81 inches, fell in 1957.
Pope’s center stands about 300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 200 ft to 380 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lowe Mountain, about 600 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Kosciusko formation (sand, clay), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 57×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, clay. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, clay. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 0.5 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 Pope reaches the Gulf of America by way of Peters Creek, the Yocona, the Tallahatchie, the Yazoo and the Mississippi: about 720 river miles.
450 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pope; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pope has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Pope normally reaches 65° and falls to 39°. The record high is 86°, in 1955; the record low 18°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 4.33 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Batesville, 7 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.