The Burnet 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.
19° on Nov. 14, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 22° in 1920.
Burnet’s center stands about 1,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,220 ft to 1,560 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Long Mountain, about 1,600 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 24×. 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, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 497 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Burnet reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hamilton Creek and the Colorado: about 390 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Marble Falls.
320 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Burnet; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Burnet has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 95° in August; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 32 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Burnet normally reaches 68° and falls to 45°. The record high is 88°, in 1903; the record low 19°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.53 in, fell in 1954.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Burnet, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.