The Brownwood 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
Showers likely
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
16° on Nov. 11, 1950, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 19° in 1911.
Brownwood’s center stands about 1,370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,320 ft to 1,580 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Salt Mountain, about 1,870 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Strawn Group (claystone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 53×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, marlstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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. 2 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 Brownwood reaches the Gulf of America by way of Adams Branch, Pecan Bayou and the Colorado: about 550 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Buchanan Lake, Lake Marble Falls and Lake Lyndon B Johnson.
320 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brownwood; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brownwood has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 31 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Brownwood normally reaches 69° and falls to 43°. The record high is 89°, in 1903; the record low 19°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.76 in, fell in 1934.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Brownwood 2 NE, here, 180 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
