The Wisconsin Rapids 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Showers likely
71° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 70° in 2001.
Wisconsin Rapids’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 970 ft to 1,080 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dorra Cooshe Mountain, about 1,210 ft, 15 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gneiss, migmatite, and amphibolite, from the Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 billion years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.9 billion years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 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 Wisconsin Rapids reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi: about 1,810 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Petenwell Lake and Lake Wisconsin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Wisconsin Rapids; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Wisconsin Rapids has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. About 31 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Wisconsin Rapids Alexander Field, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
