The Loyal 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely
−8° on Nov. 13, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −7° in 1916.
Loyal’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,180 ft to 1,300 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Mound, about 1,460 ft, 12 miles west.
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 60×. 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 20 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.9 to 1.9 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 billion years old. About 2 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 Loyal reaches the Gulf of America by way of Bear Creek, Rock Creek, the Black River, the Dodge Chute and the Mississippi: about 1,800 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Loyal; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Loyal has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 44 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
On November 14 Loyal normally reaches 43° and falls to 25°. The record high is 70°, in 1999; the record low −7°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.26 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Neillsville 3 ESE, 14 miles south, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
