The Star Prairie 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
74° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1950. Next is 71° in 1990.
Star Prairie’s center stands about 940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 890 ft to 1,070 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Mound, about 1,130 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
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 34×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 0.6 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 Star Prairie reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Apple, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,840 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Pepin and Lake Mallalieu 175.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Star Prairie; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Star Prairie has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 43 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 30 inches of water.
On November 14 Star Prairie normally reaches 42° and falls to 25°. The record high is 71°, in 1990; the record low −1°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 1951.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1950 at St. Croix Falls, 16 miles north-northwest, 190 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
