The Dairyland 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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−13° on Nov. 12, 1966, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1951. Next is −10° in 1959.
Dairyland’s center stands about 1,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,050 ft to 1,200 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chengwatana Volcanic Group (basalt), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 8 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 Dairyland reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Upper Tamarack, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,940 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 Dairyland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dairyland has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about −1° in January. A normal year brings about 60 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Dairyland normally reaches 38° and falls to 22°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low −10°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1951 at Gordon, 17 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
