The Elk Grove 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
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Partly cloudy
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Chance of showers
−3° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1901. Next is −1° in 2019.
Elk Grove’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 870 ft to 1,060 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Platte Mounds, about 1,470 ft, 7 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sinnipee Group (dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 22 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 0.7 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 Grove reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pats Creek, the Galena and the Mississippi: about 1,590 river miles.
Lake on the way: Spratts Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elk Grove; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elk Grove has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Elk Grove normally reaches 46° and falls to 26°. The record high is 71°, in 1971; the record low 0°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.82 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 at Darlington Wwtp, 14 miles east, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
