The Fitchburg 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
73° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1971. Next is 73° in 2022.
Fitchburg’s center stands about 1,020 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 940 ft to 1,160 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 54×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 1.0 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 Fitchburg reaches the Gulf of America by way of Swan Creek, the Yahara, the Rock River and the Mississippi: about 1,680 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Waubesa and Lake Kegonsa 410.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fitchburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fitchburg has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fitchburg normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 73°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1971 at Uw Arboretum - Madison, 6 miles north-northeast, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
