The Forest 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
71° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 69° in 1990.
Forest’s center stands about 1,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,070 ft to 1,270 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie du Chien Group (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million 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 55×. 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: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 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 Forest reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Willow and the Mississippi: about 1,860 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin and Lake Mallalieu 175.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Forest; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Forest has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Forest normally reaches 41° and falls to 24°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Ridgeland 1 NNE, 19 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
