The Fair Oaks Ranch 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.
8.70 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 5.20 inches, fell in 2004.
Fair Oaks Ranch’s center stands about 1,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 1,440 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Smith, about 1,900 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Terrace deposits (sand), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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, marlstone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 145 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Cretaceous, 100 to 113 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.
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 Fair Oaks Ranch reaches the Gulf of America by way of Postoak Creek, Cibolo Creek, the San Antonio, the Guadalupe and the South Guadalupe: about 280 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 Fair Oaks Ranch; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fair Oaks Ranch has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in August; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 38 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fair Oaks Ranch normally reaches 70° and falls to 46°. The record high is 93°, in 1921; the record low 23°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 4.00 in, fell in 1907.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Boerne, 7 miles west-northwest, 180 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.