The Wausau 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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69° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 68° in 1964.
Wausau’s center stands about 1,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,240 ft to 1,490 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Rib Mountain, about 1,940 ft, 9 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Felsic metavolcanic rocks of 1835- to 1845-Ma age group (rhyolite, dacite), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 53×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartz-syenite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, dacite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, conglomerate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, tonalite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old. About 0.1 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 Wausau reaches the Gulf of America by way of Prahl Creek, Big Sandy Creek, the Eau Claire, the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,890 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Petenwell Lake, Lake Wisconsin, Lake Du Bay and Wisconsin River Flowage 4964.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wausau; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wausau has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 64 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Wausau normally reaches 41° and falls to 26°. The record high is 64°, in 1990; the record low −2°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 1902.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 from the Wausau Area threaded record (Wausau Asos, 6 miles southwest, 240 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
