The Stanley 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.
−6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1946. Next is −5° in 1986.
Stanley’s center stands about 1,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,050 ft to 1,170 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gneiss, migmatite, and amphibolite, from the Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 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 54×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 billion years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 5 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 Stanley reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Wolf River, the North Fork Eau Claire, Whippoorwill Creek, the Eau Claire, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,860 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Stanley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Stanley has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Stanley normally reaches 40° and falls to 24°. The record high is 66°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Owen 1 E, 19 miles east, 170 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.