The Fort Atkinson 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 sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
75° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 73° in 1953.
Fort Atkinson’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,230 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Steamboat Rock, about 1,240 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Maquoketa formation (shale, dolostone), from the Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 440 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 374 to 388 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 1 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 Fort Atkinson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Rogers Creek, the Turkey and the Mississippi: about 1,690 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fort Atkinson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fort Atkinson has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Fort Atkinson normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 71°, in 2025; the record low −7°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.08 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Decorah, 13 miles north-northeast, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
