The Wilson 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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−16° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −9° in 1966.
Wilson’s center stands about 1,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,220 ft to 1,620 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Meteor Hill, about 1,830 ft, 9 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Barron Quartzite, from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 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 31×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 1.8 billion years old. About 0.3 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 Wilson reaches the Gulf of America by way of Hemlock Creek, the Red Cedar, the Chippewa and the Mississippi: about 1,880 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wilson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wilson 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 67 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Wilson normally reaches 40° and falls to 23°. The record high is 65°, in 1953; the record low −6°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.01 in, fell in 2010.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Couderay 7 W, 15 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
