The Onalaska 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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Showers likely
73° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1872. Next is 71° in 1990.
Onalaska’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 620 ft to 1,130 ft, a difference of 510 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Heller Hill, about 1,360 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 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.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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 Onalaska reaches the Gulf of America by way of the La Crosse and the Mississippi: about 1,680 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Onalaska; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Onalaska has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. A normal year brings about 46 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Onalaska normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.02 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1872 from the La Crosse Area threaded record (La Crosse Regional Airport, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
