The Graf 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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−5° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1873. Next is −2° in 1959.
Graf’s center stands about 830 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 750 ft to 1,140 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sherrill Mound, about 1,220 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. 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. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 447 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 487 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 468 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 454 to 459 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 Graf reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Maquoketa and the Mississippi: about 1,580 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Graf; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Graf has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 42 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Graf normally reaches 46° and falls to 29°. The record high is 70°, in 1971; the record low 5°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.11 in, fell in 1956.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1873 from the Dubuque Area threaded record (Dubuque Regional Airport, 11 miles southeast, 210 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
