The Clinton 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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0° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 3° in 1933.
Clinton’s center stands about 960 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 830 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
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 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.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone, dolostone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 468 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 454 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 0.4 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 Clinton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Spring Brook, Turtle Creek, the Rock River and the Mississippi: about 1,630 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clinton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Clinton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Clinton normally reaches 44° and falls to 28°. The record high is 74°, in 1971; the record low 6°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.83 in, fell in 1899.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Beloit, 9 miles west-southwest, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
