The Eau Claire 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
−3° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −3° in 1986.
Eau Claire’s center stands about 800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 750 ft to 1,020 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Elk Mound, about 1,210 ft, 10 miles west-northwest.
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 46×. 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 Eau Claire reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Eau Claire, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,800 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Eau Claire; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Eau Claire 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 Eau Claire 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, 4 miles north). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
