The McKinley 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
69° on Nov. 16, 1934, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is 68° in 1953.
McKinley’s center stands about 1,400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,380 ft to 1,470 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Maple Hill, about 1,590 ft, 15 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Slate and graywacke (slate, graywacke), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 8 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 McKinley reaches the Gulf of America by way of Big Swamp Creek, the Crow Wing and the Mississippi: about 2,050 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McKinley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McKinley has a dry-winter warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −3° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 McKinley normally reaches 37° and falls to 20°. The record high is 64°, in 2025; the record low −12°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 1.22 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 at Park Rapids Municipal Airport, 18 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
