The Albert Lea 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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−7° on Nov. 11, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is −6° in 1959.
Albert Lea’s center stands about 1,240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 1,310 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Middle Devonian (dolostone, limestone, shale), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 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 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, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 374 to 388 million years old. About 0.5 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 Albert Lea reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bancroft Creek, the Shell Rock, the Cedar River, the Iowa and the Mississippi: about 1,730 river miles.
Lake on the way: Albert Lea Lake.
1,410 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Albert Lea; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Albert Lea has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 40 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Albert Lea normally reaches 43° and falls to 26°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low −5°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 at Albert Lea 3 SE, 5 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
