The Elkader 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Chance of showers
76° on Nov. 12, 1964, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 76° in 1999.
Elkader’s center stands about 800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 1,060 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chicken Ridge, about 1,170 ft, 4 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Galena Group and Platteville Formation (dolostone, limestone), from the Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 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 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.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 447 million years old. About 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 Elkader reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Turkey and the Mississippi: about 1,620 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elkader; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elkader has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Elkader normally reaches 46° and falls to 25°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low −3°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.05 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Elkader 6 SSW, 6 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
