The Eldorado 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.
7° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1968. Next is 10° in 1986.
Eldorado’s center stands about 1,150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,080 ft to 1,220 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hoosier Hill, about 1,320 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lockport Dolomite (dolostone), from the Silurian, 425 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 58×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 445 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old. About 0.4 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 Eldorado reaches the Gulf of America by way of Price Creek, Twin Creek, the Great Miami, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,560 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Eldorado; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Eldorado has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Eldorado normally reaches 52° and falls to 33°. The record high is 74°, in 1971; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.00 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1968 at Richmond Water Works, 11 miles west-southwest, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.