The Wausau 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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6.99 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1939. The next wettest, 3.92 inches, fell in 1951.
Wausau’s center stands about 100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 280 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Falling Water Hill, about 360 ft, 7 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alum Bluff Group (sand, clay), from the Middle Miocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 16 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 61×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, clay. Age: Middle Miocene to Early Pliocene, 3.6 to 16 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Pliocene, 2.6 to 3.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.3 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 Wausau reaches Choctawhatchee Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Holmes Creek and the Choctawhatchee: about 65 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wausau; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wausau has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 38° in January. About 61 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Wausau normally reaches 73° and falls to 46°. The record high is 86°, in 2015; the record low 26°, in 1963. The most rain on this date, 1.77 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1939 at Chipley, 10 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
