The Rocky 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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92° on Nov. 17, 2017, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1910. Next is 86° in 2021.
Rocky’s center stands about 1,650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,590 ft to 1,720 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rush Springs Formation (sandstone), from the Permian, 252 to 299 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 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. 4 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Rocky reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Elk Creek, Elk Creek, the North Fork Red, the Red River, the Atchafalaya and the Lower Atchafalaya: about 1,210 river miles.
960 miles of the trip are on the Red River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rocky; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rocky has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. About 28 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rocky normally reaches 62° and falls to 39°. The record high is 84°, in 2020; the record low 14°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.47 in, fell in 1924.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at Hobart Municipal Airport, 12 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
