The Salem 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
72° on Nov. 14, 1990, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1908. Next is 69° in 1953.
Salem’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 690 ft to 1,130 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tuttle Hill, about 1,220 ft, 14 miles northeast.
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 36×. 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: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Dolostone, sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 million years old. About 0.4 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 Salem reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rush and the Mississippi: about 1,770 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Pepin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 72°, in 1990; the record low 1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Ellsworth 1 E, 9 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
