The Chappell 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
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Showers likely
−9° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1952. Next is −5° in 1986.
Chappell’s center stands about 3,690 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,640 ft to 3,910 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Vernon, about 3,980 ft, 6 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows White River Group (clay), from the Early Oligocene to Late Oligocene, 23 to 34 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 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Early Oligocene to Late Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 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 Chappell reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lodgepole Creek, the South Platte, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,190 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Chappell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chappell has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 18 inches of water.
On November 14 Chappell normally reaches 51° and falls to 25°. The record high is 77°, in 1990; the record low −7°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 0.14 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Sedgwick 5 S, 16 miles south, 310 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
