The Hico 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
80° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1967. Next is 75° in 1985.
Hico’s center stands about 2,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,530 ft to 2,510 ft, a difference of 980 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Myles Knob, about 3,460 ft, 15 miles southeast.
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 8×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.5 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 Hico reaches the Gulf of America by way of Smales Branch, Mill Creek, the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,800 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hico; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hico has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hico normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 74°, in 1989; the record low 9°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.82 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1967 at Summersville Lake, 10 miles northeast, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
