The Moran 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
Chance of showers
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
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Partly cloudy
89° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 87° in 2005.
Moran’s center stands about 1,360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,300 ft to 1,450 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cedar Mountain, about 1,610 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
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 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 37×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Carboniferous to Permian, 252 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Claystone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone-mudstone. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 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. 4 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 Moran reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hubbard Creek, the Clear Fork and the Brazos: about 830 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Possum Kingdom Lake and Lake Granbury.
550 miles of the trip are on the Brazos.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Moran; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Moran has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 96° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Moran normally reaches 67° and falls to 42°. The record high is 85°, in 1989; the record low 18°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 2.10 in, fell in 1954.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Putnam, 13 miles south, 260 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
