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This is the current conditions weather report for Portage. The report was made 19 minutes ago, at 05:55 UTC. The wind was blowing at a speed of 15 miles per hour / 24.1 kilometers per hour with gusts up to 15 miles per hour / 24.1 kilometers per hour from the north northwest (330°). The temperature was 14°F / -10°C, with a dew-point at 14°F / -10°C. The temperature felt like 0°F / -18°C. The atmospheric pressure was 30.36 inHg / 1029 hPa. The relative humidity was 37%. The skies were clear.

Portage, commonly referred to as "Where the North Begins", is a city in Columbia County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 9,728 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Columbia County. Portage is named for the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway, a portage between the Fox River and the Wisconsin River which was recognized by Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet during their discovery of a route to the Mississippi river in 1673.

Portage emerged at this place because of its unique position along the one and a half mile strip of marshy floodplain between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. by the end of the 17th century, the Fox-Wisconsin waterway, linked at The Portage, served as the major fur trade thoroughfare between Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. It was not until the 1780s and 1790s that traders built their posts and warehouses at each end of The Portage. In 1828, the federal government recognized the strategic economic importance of The Portage and built Fort Winnebago at the Fox River end. After 15 years of controversy, Winnebago settlement (now Portage) won the county seat in 1851. The community incorporated as Portage City in 1854.

The Portage business district lies along a hillside which overlooks the Portage Canal. The buildings now in the city's downtown were once part of a bustling, urban commercial center serving a large region across north central Wisconsin. The building of the city paralleled its commercial prominence between the end of the American Civil War and the second decade of the 20th century.

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