The West Chicago 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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Sunny; warmer
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Partly cloudy
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1° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 5° in 1986.
West Chicago’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country.
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 2 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 21 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 454 million years old. About 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 West Chicago reaches the Gulf of America by way of Kress Creek, the West Branch Du Page, the Du Page, the Des Plaines, the Illinois and the Mississippi: about 1,520 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 West Chicago; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
West Chicago has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 West Chicago normally reaches 49° and falls to 30°. The record high is 74°, in 1971; the record low 9°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.29 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Lisle - Morton Arboretum, 8 miles southeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
