The Benton 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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73° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1937. Next is 71° in 1953.
Benton’s center stands about 920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 1,020 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Platte Mounds, about 1,470 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sinnipee Group (dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million 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 41×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 454 to 459 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 Benton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Coon Branch, the Galena and the Mississippi: about 1,570 river miles.
Lake on the way: Spratts Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Benton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Benton has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Benton normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 12°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1937 at Dubuque L&D 11, 14 miles west, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
