The Post Lake 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely
−9° on Nov. 16, 1932, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −6° in 1933.
Post Lake’s center stands about 1,560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,510 ft to 1,670 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Hill, about 1,890 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mafic to felsic metavolcanic rocks, from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Basalt, andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.9 to 1.9 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 4 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 Post Lake reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Wolf River and the Fox River: about 260 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lakes on the way: Lake Winnebago 6124, Lake Winneconne and Lake Butte des Morts.
180 miles of the trip are on the Wolf River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Post Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Post Lake has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. About 30 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Post Lake normally reaches 40° and falls to 23°. The record high is 63°, in 1953; the record low −3°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.49 in, fell in 1930.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Rhinelander Area threaded record (Rhinelander Oneida County Airport, 24 miles northwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
