The Stillwater 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.
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−7° on Nov. 11, 1995, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1981. Next is 3° in 1996.
Stillwater’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Mound, about 1,130 ft, 9 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Cambrian (sandstone, siltstone, shale), from the Cambrian, 487 to 497 million 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 43×. 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 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million 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 Stillwater reaches the Gulf of America by way of Browns Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,820 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin and Lake Mallalieu 175.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Stillwater; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Stillwater has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Stillwater normally reaches 43° and falls to 29°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low 4°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.13 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1981 at Vadnais Lake, 14 miles west, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
