The Elk 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
10° on Nov. 16, 1967, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1884. Next is 10° in 1986.
Elk’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,250 ft to 1,610 ft, a difference of 360 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Zagst Hill, about 1,760 ft, 12 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pottsville Formation (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. 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, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.7 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 Elk reaches the Gulf of America by way of Deer Creek, the Clarion, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,070 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Ohio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elk; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elk has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Elk normally reaches 50° and falls to 29°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1884 at Clarion 3 SW, 6 miles south-southeast, 430 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
