The Sterling 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.
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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Showers likely
−10° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1990. Next is −5° in 2005.
Sterling’s center stands about 870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 930 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wild Mountain, about 1,090 ft, 9 miles south-southeast.
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 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. 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 18 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 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 Sterling reaches the Gulf of America by way of Cold Creek, the Trade, the Saint Croix and the Mississippi: about 1,860 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 Sterling; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sterling has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. About 32 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sterling normally reaches 41° and falls to 22°. The record high is 71°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1990 at Wild River State Park, 6 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
