The Kasson 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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71° on Nov. 16, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1886. Next is 71° in 1999.
Kasson’s center stands about 1,270 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,120 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Ordovician (limestone, dolostone), from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 53×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million 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 Kasson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Masten Creek, the South Branch Middle Fork Zumbro, the Middle Fork Zumbro, the Zumbro and the Mississippi: about 1,820 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kasson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kasson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 53 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Kasson normally reaches 42° and falls to 26°. The record high is 69°, in 2025; the record low −5°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.88 in, fell in 1973.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1886 from the Rochester Area threaded record (Rochester International Airport, 16 miles southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
