The Ellsworth 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
72° on Nov. 14, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is 69° in 1953.
Ellsworth’s center stands about 1,220 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 960 ft to 1,230 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 33×. 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: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 million years old. About 0.6 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 Ellsworth reaches the Gulf of America by way of Isabelle Creek and the Mississippi: about 1,780 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ellsworth; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ellsworth has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ellsworth normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Ellsworth 1 E, here, 190 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
