The Merriam 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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0° on Nov. 11, 2007, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 3° in 2019.
Merriam’s center stands about 940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 890 ft to 1,010 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Diamond Hill, about 1,090 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Antrim Shale (black-shale), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 million 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 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.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 0.8 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.
Merriam straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the east side runs to the Gulf of America; most of the rest goes to Lake Michigan.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Michigan by way of Winebrenner Branch, Correll Creek, the South Branch Elkhart and the Saint Joseph: about 150 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the east side reaches the Gulf of America by way of Mud Run, the Blue River, the Eel, the Wabash, Big Bayou, the Wabash River Old Channel, the Old Channel Wabash, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,530 river miles.
75 miles of the trip are on the Saint Joseph.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Merriam; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Merriam has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Merriam normally reaches 49° and falls to 32°. The record high is 70°, in 1989; the record low 0°, in 2007. The most rain on this date, 1.78 in, fell in 1978.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Columbia City, 10 miles south-southwest, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
