The Waukon 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
−5° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1934. Next is −5° in 1986.
Waukon’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,070 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. 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, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous, 94 to 113 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 Waukon reaches the Gulf of America by way of Paint Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,650 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Waukon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Waukon has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Waukon normally reaches 43° and falls to 27°. The record high is 68°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Waukon 3 NNE, 3 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
