The Nora 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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−3° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1943. Next is −2° in 1959.
Nora’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 870 ft to 1,020 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Benton Mound, about 1,260 ft, 6 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Maquoketa Formation or Group (shale, limestone), from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 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 Nora reaches the Gulf of America by way of the South Fork Apple, the Apple and the Mississippi: about 1,570 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nora; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Nora has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° 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 Nora normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 70°, in 1989; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.77 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1943 at Stockton 3 NNE, 5 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
