The McKinley 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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−10° on Nov. 17, 1989, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is −9° in 1986.
McKinley’s center stands about 1,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 1,380 ft, a difference of 170 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 42×. 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 McKinley reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Clam, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,960 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 McKinley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McKinley has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 56 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 McKinley normally reaches 39° and falls to 23°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low −2°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 at Cumberland, 8 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
