The Morrison 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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82° on Nov. 17, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 80° in 2002.
Morrison’s center stands about 1,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 990 ft to 1,130 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Butte, about 2,030 ft, 12 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows St. Louis Limestone and Warsaw Limestone, from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Chert. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 Morrison reaches the Gulf of America by way of Keel Branch, Hickory Creek, the Barren Fork, the Collins, the Caney Fork, the Cumberland, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,460 river miles.
Lake on the way: Bards Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Morrison; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Morrison has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 54 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Morrison normally reaches 62° and falls to 39°. The record high is 79°, in 1993; the record low 18°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.05 in, fell in 1915.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Mc Minnville, 9 miles east-northeast, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
