The Oklahoma 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.
68° on Nov. 13, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 68° in 1994.
Oklahoma’s center stands about 1,500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,400 ft to 1,830 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Boone Mountain, about 2,410 ft, 10 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glenshaw Formation (shale), 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 20×. 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: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 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 Oklahoma reaches the Gulf of America by way of Laborde Branch, Sandy Lick Creek, Redbank Creek, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,090 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 Oklahoma; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Oklahoma has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Oklahoma normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 68°, in 1994; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.05 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Dubois Regional Airport, 10 miles west-northwest, 310 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.