The Union 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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83° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1933. Next is 78° in 2001.
Union’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 940 ft to 1,140 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is King Hill, about 1,190 ft, 8 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Shawnee Group (limestone, shale, siltstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 56×. 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, mudstone. Age: Late Pennsylvanian, 299 to 307 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 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 Union reaches the Gulf of America by way of Weeping Water Creek, 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 Union; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Union has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Union normally reaches 52° and falls to 30°. The record high is 83°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.83 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1933 at Nebraska City 2 NW, 8 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
