The Maiden Rock 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
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Showers likely
72° on Nov. 14, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is 69° in 1953.
Maiden Rock’s center stands about 730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 660 ft to 1,130 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Farm Hill, about 1,180 ft, 8 miles east-southeast.
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 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Maiden Rock reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi: about 1,760 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Maiden Rock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Maiden Rock has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Maiden Rock normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Ellsworth 1 E, 14 miles north-northwest, 300 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
