The Elk 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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−9° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1992. Next is −2° in 2019.
Elk’s center stands about 1,460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,410 ft to 1,560 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granite-tonalite (granite, tonalite, gneiss), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.9 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 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.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Granite, tonalite, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.9 billion years old. About 11 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 Elk reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Elk River, the South Fork Flambeau, the Flambeau, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,930 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Wissota and Holcombe Flowage.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elk; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elk has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Elk normally reaches 38° and falls to 23°. The record high is 64°, in 1999; the record low 0°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 2005.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1992 at Park Falls Dnr Headquarters, 18 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
