The Galena 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.
Galena’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 600 ft to 910 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is White Hill, about 1,270 ft, 13 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Galena Group (Trenton Limestone) (dolostone, limestone), from the Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 468 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 447 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Galena reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hughlett Branch, the Galena and the Mississippi: about 1,550 river miles.
Lake on the way: Spratts Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Galena; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Galena 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 Galena 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, 14 miles west, 280 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
