The Cable 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.
68° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 65° in 1917.
Cable’s center stands about 1,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,300 ft to 1,640 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Telemark, about 1,710 ft, 2 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Powder Mill Group; Kallander Creek Volcanics (basalt), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old.
The section below crosses 5 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.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Paleoarchean, 3.2 to 3.6 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 0.6 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 Cable reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Namekagon, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 2,010 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 Cable; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cable has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 31 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cable normally reaches 40° and falls to 24°. The record high is 62°, in 2025; the record low −6°, in 1943. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Hayward Area threaded record (Hayward Municipal Airport, 14 miles south-southwest, 170 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.