The Indianola 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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4.17 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1898. The next wettest, 3.54 inches, fell in 2015.
Indianola’s center stands about 1,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 970 ft to 1,190 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Keokuk and Reeds Spring Formations and St. Joe Group (chert, limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 40×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Chert, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 6 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 Indianola reaches the Gulf of America by way of Brush Creek, Spavinaw Creek, the Neosho, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,100 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Murray Lake and Ozark Lake.
600 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Indianola; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Indianola has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. A normal year brings about 12 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Indianola normally reaches 61° and falls to 40°. The record high is 78°, in 1999; the record low 7°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 4.04 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Gravette, 13 miles east, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
