The Elba 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
−13° on Nov. 11, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −9° in 1916.
Elba’s center stands about 1,870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,790 ft to 2,020 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Happy Jack Peak, about 2,050 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ogallala Group or Formation (siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
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.
Siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 24 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 Elba reaches the Gulf of America by way of the North Loup, the Loup, the Platte, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,940 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 Elba; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elba has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 31 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 26 inches of water.
On November 14 Elba normally reaches 50° and falls to 23°. The record high is 74°, in 2025; the record low −9°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.27 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at North Loup, 18 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
