The Paducah 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.
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95° on Nov. 16, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1944. Next is 88° in 1989.
Paducah’s center stands about 1,870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,750 ft to 2,020 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bull Pasture Hill, about 2,130 ft, 12 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Whitehorse Group, undivided (sandstone, shale), from the Permian, 252 to 299 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 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 7 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 Paducah reaches the Gulf of America by way of Salt Creek, the North Wichita, the Wichita, the Red River, the Atchafalaya and the Lower Atchafalaya: about 1,270 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Kemp and Lake Diversion.
870 miles of the trip are on the Red River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Paducah; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Paducah has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 97° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Paducah normally reaches 66° and falls to 38°. The record high is 86°, in 1964; the record low 16°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.93 in, fell in 1947.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1944 at Paducah 7 E, 7 miles east, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
