The Marathon City 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
69° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 68° in 1964.
Marathon City’s center stands about 1,210 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,200 ft to 1,430 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rib Mountain, about 1,940 ft, 8 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granodiorite-tonalite (granodiorite, tonalite), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Felsic-hypabyssal. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, tonalite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.5 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 Marathon City reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Big Rib, the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,890 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Petenwell Lake, Lake Wisconsin, Lake Du Bay and Wisconsin River Flowage 4964.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marathon City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marathon City has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 64 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Marathon City normally reaches 41° and falls to 26°. The record high is 64°, in 1990; the record low −2°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 from the Wausau Area threaded record (Wausau Asos, 11 miles east). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
