The Independence 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. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1939. Next is 70° in 1999.
Independence’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 740 ft to 1,060 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Square Bluff, about 1,300 ft, 4 miles east.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. 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: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 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 Independence reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Trempealeau and the Mississippi: about 1,730 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Independence; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Independence has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 38 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Independence normally reaches 44° and falls to 30°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.40 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1939 at Winona Dam 5 A, 20 miles southwest, 240 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
