The Clayton 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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84° on Nov. 12, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 83° in 1896.
Clayton’s center stands about 5,060 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,860 ft to 5,140 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rabbit Ear Mesa, about 6,020 ft, 7 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Basaltic to andesitic lava flows (basalt, andesite), from the Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 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 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Middle Miocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 16 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arenite, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 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.
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 Clayton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Junkyard Creek, West Rita Blanca Creek, Rita Blanca Creek, Punta de Agua Creek, the Canadian, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,700 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
630 miles of the trip are on the Canadian.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clayton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Clayton has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 22 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 16 inches of water.
On November 14 Clayton normally reaches 58° and falls to 30°. The record high is 81°, in 1897; the record low −1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.51 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 from the Clayton Area threaded record (Clayton Municipal Air Park, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
