The Sterling 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
79° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 78° in 2025.
Sterling’s center stands about 1,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,160 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Wabaunsee Group (shale, sandstone, limestone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, limestone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 Sterling reaches the Gulf of America by way of the North Fork Big Nemaha, the Big Nemaha, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,730 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 Sterling; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sterling has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 26 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 32 inches of water.
On November 14 Sterling normally reaches 52° and falls to 28°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 0°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Syracuse, 17 miles northeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
