The Lake Wisconsin 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.
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−3° on Nov. 14, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −3° in 1986.
Lake Wisconsin’s center stands about 840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 760 ft to 1,100 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sauk Point, about 1,630 ft, 5 miles northwest.
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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 24×. 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 18 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 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 Lake Wisconsin reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lake Wisconsin, the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,710 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Wisconsin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lake Wisconsin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lake Wisconsin has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 43 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Lake Wisconsin normally reaches 46° and falls to 28°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low −3°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.16 in, fell in 1956.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Baraboo Wwtp, 10 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
