The Ross Lake 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
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
68° on Nov. 17, 1913, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 68° in 1953.
Ross Lake’s center stands about 1,290 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
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 8 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 2.5 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Siltstone, graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartzite, conglomerate, mudstone. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation, sedimentary-breccia. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 2 billion years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Volcanic, sedimentary, hypabyssal. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Ross Lake reaches the Gulf of America by way of Ross Brook, Mud Brook, the Little Pine, the Pine River and the Mississippi: about 2,030 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ross Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ross Lake has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −1° 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 Ross Lake normally reaches 39° and falls to 23°. The record high is 63°, in 2016; the record low −4°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at Pine River Dam, 13 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
