The North Lancaster 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
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Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Chance of showers
−3° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −1° in 1986.
North Lancaster’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 840 ft to 1,140 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pine Knob, about 1,090 ft, 10 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Prairie du Chien Group (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 36×. 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: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 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 North Lancaster reaches the Gulf of America by way of Borah Creek, the Grant and the Mississippi: about 1,620 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of North Lancaster; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
North Lancaster has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 37 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 North Lancaster normally reaches 44° and falls to 28°. The record high is 72°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Lancaster 4 WSW, 7 miles southwest, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
