The De Soto 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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−2° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1936. Next is 1° in 1986.
De Soto’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 1,200 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lawrence Hill, about 1,180 ft, 1 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cambrian, undivided (sandstone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 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 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 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 De Soto reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Mississippi: about 1,640 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of De Soto; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
De Soto has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 35 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 De Soto normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 69°, in 1990; the record low 6°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1936 at Genoa Dam 8, 10 miles north, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
