The French 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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−13° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is −12° in 1986.
French’s center stands about 1,410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,330 ft to 1,520 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granitic intrusion, from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 62×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granitic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Syenite, monzodiorite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Graywacke, mudstone. 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 3 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Tonalite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 French reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Sturgeon, the Little Fork, the Rainy, the Winnipeg and the Nelson: about 1,070 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Lakes on the way: Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnipeg.
400 miles of the trip are on the Nelson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of French; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
French has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° in January. About 25 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 French normally reaches 35° and falls to 18°. The record high is 62°, in 1953; the record low −5°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.79 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 from the Hibbing Area threaded record (Hibbing Chisholm Hibbing Airport, 21 miles south-southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
