The Downing 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
70° on Nov. 14, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 69° in 1964.
Downing’s center stands about 970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 950 ft to 1,190 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Otteson Bluff, about 1,280 ft, 12 miles east-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 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 16 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million 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 Downing reaches the Gulf of America by way of Tiffany Creek, the Hay, the Red Cedar, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,820 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Downing; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Downing has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. A normal year brings about 41 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Downing normally reaches 43° and falls to 24°. The record high is 70°, in 1990; the record low 4°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.63 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Menomonie, 15 miles southeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
