The Ford 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
72° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1904. Next is 70° in 1953.
Ford’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gray granodiorite to granite intrusions (granodiorite, granite), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 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 59×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 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 Ford reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Snake, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,950 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 Ford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 32 inches of water.
On November 14 Ford normally reaches 40° and falls to 23°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −5°, in 1919. The most rain on this date, 1.02 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1904 at Mora, 17 miles south, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
