The Washington 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.
73° on Nov. 16, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 69° in 2022.
Washington’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 800 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
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 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 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 Washington reaches Lake Michigan by way of Pickerel Creek, the Shawano Lake Outlet, the Wolf River and the Fox River: about 200 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lakes on the way: Lake Winnebago 6124, Lake Winneconne, Lake Butte des Morts and Shawano Lake.
100 miles of the trip are on the Wolf River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Washington has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 48 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Washington normally reaches 43° and falls to 26°. The record high is 68°, in 1999; the record low 2°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.59 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Shawano 2 SSW, 11 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.