The Clear Lake 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
71° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 69° in 1990.
Clear Lake’s center stands about 1,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,290 ft, a difference of 200 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie du Chien Group (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 59×. 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: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 11 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 Clear Lake reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Willow and the Mississippi: about 1,860 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 Clear Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Clear Lake has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Clear Lake normally reaches 41° and falls to 24°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Ridgeland 1 NNE, 19 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
