The Starkville 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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4.82 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1891. The next wettest, 4.68 inches, fell in 2015.
Starkville’s center stands about 340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 260 ft to 400 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie Bluff chalk and Owl Creek formation (chalk, clay), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Chalk. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Paleocene, 56 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sand, clay, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Chalk, clay. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 4 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 Starkville reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Josey Creek, Trim Cane Creek, Line Creek, Tibbee Creek, the Tombigbee and the Mobile: about 390 river miles.
300 miles of the trip are on the Tombigbee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Starkville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Starkville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. About 58 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Starkville normally reaches 66° and falls to 42°. The record high is 86°, in 1955; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.00 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at State University, 2 miles east-northeast, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
