The Ben Wade 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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−8° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1940. Next is −5° in 1940.
Ben Wade’s center stands about 1,310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,260 ft to 1,370 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tower Hill, about 1,600 ft, 10 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Foliated to gneissic tonalite and granodiorite (orthogneiss), from the Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 billion 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 49×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Orthogneiss. Age: Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Schist, paragneiss. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss, migmatite. Age: Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 billion years old. About 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 Ben Wade reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Chippewa, the Chippewa, the Minnesota and the Mississippi: about 2,190 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
1,750 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ben Wade; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ben Wade has a dry-winter warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ben Wade normally reaches 38° and falls to 24°. The record high is 69°, in 1953; the record low −8°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.22 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1940 at Alexandria Chandler Field, 14 miles northeast, 110 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
