The Atkinson 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
67° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 66° in 1953.
Atkinson’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,140 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Graywacke and slate (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 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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 Atkinson reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Moose Horn, the Kettle, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,960 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin and Lake Mallalieu 175.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Atkinson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Atkinson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 71 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Atkinson normally reaches 36° and falls to 23°. The record high is 63°, in 1953; the record low −8°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Cloquet, 8 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
