The Parkers Prairie 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
−8° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1940. Next is −5° in 1940.
Parkers Prairie’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,430 ft to 1,530 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Inspiration Peak, about 1,720 ft, 12 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Volcaniclastic rocks of felsic to intermediate composition (felsic-volcanic), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion 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 59×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Schist, paragneiss. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 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.
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 Parkers Prairie reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lake Miltona, Lake Ida, Lake Carlos, the Long Prairie, the Crow Wing and the Mississippi: about 2,110 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin, Lake Miltona, Lake Ida and Lake Carlos.
1,750 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Parkers Prairie; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Parkers Prairie has a dry-winter warm-summer continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 24 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Parkers Prairie normally reaches 38° and falls to 24°. The record high is 69°, in 1953; the record low −8°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.22 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1940 at Alexandria Chandler Field, 20 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
