The Briarcliff 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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24° on Nov. 14, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1942. Next is 25° in 2014.
Briarcliff’s center stands about 770 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 1,020 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Shovel Mountain, about 1,540 ft, 12 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glen Rose Limestone (limestone, marlstone), from the Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 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 27×. 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, marlstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 1 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 Briarcliff reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lake Marble Falls and the Colorado: about 340 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Marble Falls.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Briarcliff; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Briarcliff has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in August; winter nights fall to about 38° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Briarcliff normally reaches 72° and falls to 47°. The record high is 89°, in 2020; the record low 24°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.87 in, fell in 1998.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1942 from the Austin-Bergstrom Airport Area threaded record (Austin-Camp Mabry, 18 miles east-southeast, 100 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
