The Melrose 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
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
69° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1954. Next is 66° in 2025.
Melrose’s center stands about 1,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,170 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Eagle Mountain, about 1,490 ft, 12 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Foliated to gneissic tonalite and granodiorite (orthogneiss), from the Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 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 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 10 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss. Age: Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Volcanic, sedimentary, hypabyssal. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss, migmatite. Age: Paleoarchean to Mesoarchean, 2.8 to 3.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 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 Melrose reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Sauk and the Mississippi: about 1,980 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin and Zumwalles Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Melrose; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Melrose has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 29 inches of water.
On November 14 Melrose normally reaches 39° and falls to 22°. The record high is 64°, in 2016; the record low −5°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.34 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1954 at Melrose, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
