The Milwaukee 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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1° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1871. Next is 4° in 1880.
Milwaukee’s center stands about 620 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 570 ft to 720 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Traverse Group (limestone, shale), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 49×. 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: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million 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 Milwaukee reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Menomonee, the Milwaukee and the Kinnickinnic: about 4 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Milwaukee; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Milwaukee has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 49 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Milwaukee normally reaches 48° and falls to 34°. The record high is 70°, in 1971; the record low 7°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 1.24 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1871 from the Milwaukee Area threaded record (Milwaukee Mitchell Airport, 6 miles south). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
