The Prairie du Chien 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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77° on Nov. 14, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 75° in 1902.
Prairie du Chien’s center stands about 640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 1,140 ft, a difference of 530 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mondell Hill, about 1,150 ft, 2 miles east-southeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 30×. 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 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 459 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 447 to 454 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 454 to 487 million years old. About 1 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 Prairie du Chien reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Mississippi: about 1,620 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Prairie du Chien; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Prairie du Chien has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Prairie du Chien normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 77°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 1.05 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Prairie Du Chien, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
