The Old Mill Creek 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.
72° on Nov. 11, 1964, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1944. Next is 71° in 1971.
Old Mill Creek’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 820 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gander Mountain, about 960 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian System undivided (dolostone, limestone), from the Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 Old Mill Creek reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the Des Plaines, the Illinois and the Mississippi: about 1,570 river miles.
Lake on the way: Peoria Lake.
1,190 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Old Mill Creek; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Old Mill Creek has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Old Mill Creek normally reaches 48° and falls to 33°. The record high is 71°, in 1971; the record low 10°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.09 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1944 at Kenosha Wwtp, 12 miles northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.