The South Fork 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
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Showers likely
67° on Nov. 15, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 65° in 2001.
South Fork’s center stands about 1,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,310 ft to 1,520 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granite-tonalite (granite, tonalite, gneiss), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.9 billion years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt, basaltic-andesite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Granite, tonalite, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.9 billion years old. About 11 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 South Fork reaches the Gulf of America by way of Skinner Creek, the Flambeau, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,910 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Wissota and Holcombe Flowage.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Fork; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Fork has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 South Fork normally reaches 40° and falls to 25°. The record high is 64°, in 1990; the record low −1°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.13 in, fell in 2000.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Big Falls Hydro, 11 miles west-southwest, 240 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
