The Aitkin 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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69° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 68° in 1999.
Aitkin’s center stands about 1,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,190 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fire Tower Hill, about 1,400 ft, 6 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Graywacke and slate with graphitic and sulfidic zones (graywacke, slate), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Volcanic, sedimentary. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Siltstone, graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Volcanic, sedimentary, hypabyssal. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.7 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 Aitkin reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Ripple and the Mississippi: about 2,040 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Aitkin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Aitkin has a dry-winter warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Aitkin normally reaches 40° and falls to 22°. The record high is 67°, in 1953; the record low −5°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.55 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 from the Brainerd Area threaded record (Brainerd Crow Wing County Airport, 22 miles west-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
