The Owen 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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−6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1946. Next is −5° in 1986.
Owen’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gneiss and amphibolite (gneiss, amphibolite), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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 53×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Volcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.9 to 1.9 billion 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 Owen reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Popple, the Black River, the Dodge Chute and the Mississippi: about 1,810 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Owen; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Owen has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Owen normally reaches 40° and falls to 24°. The record high is 66°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Owen 1 E, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
