The Rusk 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
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
3.07 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1982. The next wettest, 2.53 inches, fell in 1996.
Rusk’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,050 ft to 1,330 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Hill, about 1,730 ft, 11 miles north-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 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 29×. 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 20 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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 Rusk reaches the Gulf of America by way of Tenmile Creek, the Chetek, the Red Cedar, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,850 river miles.
Lake on the way: Chetek Flowage 135.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rusk; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rusk has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 31 inches of water.
On November 14 Rusk normally reaches 41° and falls to 24°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low 3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1982 at Rice Lake, 15 miles west-northwest, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
