The Converse 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.
21° on Nov. 14, 2018, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 25° in 1969.
Converse’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 620 ft to 920 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Classen Hill, about 1,230 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Navarro Group and Marlbrook Marl, undivided (clay, siltstone-mudstone), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 36×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Late Paleocene to Early Eocene, 48 to 59 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone, carbonate. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 113 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Paleocene to Eocene, 34 to 66 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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. 3 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 Converse reaches the Gulf of America by way of Salitrillo Creek, Martinez Creek, Cibolo Creek, the San Antonio, the Guadalupe and the South Guadalupe: about 220 river miles.
130 miles of the trip are on the San Antonio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Converse; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Converse has a hot desert climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in July; winter nights fall to about 41° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Randolph Afb, 3 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.