The Maskell 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 sunny
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
80° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 79° in 1953.
Maskell’s center stands about 1,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,120 ft to 1,500 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pumpkin Hill, about 1,430 ft, 6 miles east.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 38×. 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, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone, conglomerate-sandstone. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, mudstone, marlstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Maskell reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lime Creek, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,930 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 Maskell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Maskell has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 28 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Maskell normally reaches 49° and falls to 26°. The record high is 80°, in 2025; the record low −24°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Vermillion 2 SE, 6 miles north-northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
