The Colfax 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
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Showers likely
−3° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −3° in 1986.
Colfax’s center stands about 950 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 900 ft to 1,190 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Otteson Bluff, about 1,280 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cambrian, undivided (sandstone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 50×. 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 24 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 Colfax reaches the Gulf of America by way of Eighteenmile Creek, the Red Cedar, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,810 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Colfax; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Colfax has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 55 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Colfax normally reaches 43° and falls to 25°. The record high is 70°, in 1990; the record low 0°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.12 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Eau Claire Area threaded record (Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, 15 miles southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
