The Carson 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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70° on Nov. 16, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 70° in 1964.
Carson’s center stands about 1,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,170 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Maple Hill, about 1,290 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Milladore Volcanic Complex (metasedimentary, metavolcanic), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.9 to 1.9 billion 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 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.
Metasedimentary, metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.9 to 1.9 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Mylonite. Age: Archean to Paleoproterozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 billion 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 Carson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mill Creek, the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,840 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Petenwell Lake and Lake Wisconsin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Carson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Carson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 49 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Carson normally reaches 42° and falls to 26°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.96 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Stevens Point, 8 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
