The Lincoln 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.
74° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1950. Next is 71° in 1990.
Lincoln’s center stands about 1,080 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,050 ft to 1,180 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cambrian, undivided (sandstone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
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.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 24 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 Lincoln reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Apple, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,870 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 Lincoln; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lincoln has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 43 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 30 inches of water.
On November 14 Lincoln normally reaches 42° and falls to 25°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low −1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1950 at St. Croix Falls, 15 miles west-northwest, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.