The Forest 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.
73° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 67° in 1934.
Forest’s center stands about 1,610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,550 ft to 1,720 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jack Pine Hill, about 1,990 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granite to granodiorite (granite, granodiorite), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 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 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, greenstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gabbro, peridotite, pyroxenite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 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 Forest reaches the Gulf of America by way of Indian Creek, Basswood Creek, Hay Creek, the Potato, the Fishhook, the Shell, the Crow Wing and the Mississippi: about 2,110 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 Forest; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Forest has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 28 inches of water.
On November 14 Forest normally reaches 35° and falls to 19°. The record high is 70°, in 1953; the record low −20°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Itasca University Of Minn, 11 miles northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.