The Mabel 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Showers likely
75° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 73° in 1953.
Mabel’s center stands about 1,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Hammer Bluff, about 1,280 ft, 7 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lower Ordovician (dolostone, sandstone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million 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.
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 Mabel reaches the Gulf of America by way of Riceford Creek, the South Fork Root, the Root and the Mississippi: about 1,730 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mabel; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mabel has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Mabel normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 71°, in 2025; the record low −7°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.08 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Decorah, 15 miles south, 260 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
