The Clifton 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Chance of showers
−6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1905. Next is 0° in 1986.
Clifton’s center stands about 970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 920 ft to 1,310 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Johnson Hill, about 1,430 ft, 9 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cambrian, undivided (sandstone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 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 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 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 Clifton reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Little Lemonweir, the Lemonweir, the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,810 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Wisconsin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clifton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Clifton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 47 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Clifton normally reaches 45° and falls to 28°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 1931.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1905 at Mauston 1 SE, 16 miles east-southeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
