The South St. Paul 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
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
72° on Nov. 14, 2025, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1871. Next is 71° in 1999.
South St. Paul’s center stands about 830 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 1,060 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bissels Mounds, about 1,000 ft, 10 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Middle and Upper Ordovician (shale, limestone, sandstone), from the Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, limestone, sandstone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 0.9 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 South St. Paul reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Mississippi: about 1,810 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South St. Paul; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South St. Paul has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 South St. Paul normally reaches 43° and falls to 28°. The record high is 72°, in 2025; the record low 1°, in 1919. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1871 at St. Paul Downtown Airport, 3 miles north-northwest, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
