The Van Buren 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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−9° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1903. Next is −7° in 1986.
Van Buren’s center stands about 1,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,240 ft to 1,290 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarloaf, about 1,490 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Slate and graywacke (slate, graywacke), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old.
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 24 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 Van Buren reaches Lake Superior by way of the Floodwood and the Saint Louis: about 60 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Van Buren; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Van Buren has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about −4° in January. A normal year brings about 56 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 28 inches of water.
On November 14 Van Buren normally reaches 37° and falls to 20°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low −2°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 at Floodwood 2 E, 5 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
