The Alanson 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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−5° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −5° in 2019.
Alanson’s center stands about 610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 590 ft to 1,040 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Emmet Heights, about 1,340 ft, 9 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Traverse Group (limestone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 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 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 22 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 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.
A raindrop that lands in Alanson reaches Lake Huron by way of the Crooked River, the Indian and the Cheboygan: about 35 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lakes on the way: Burt Lake and Mullett Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alanson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alanson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in February. About 30 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Alanson normally reaches 44° and falls to 28°. The record high is 61°, in 2016; the record low −1°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.52 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Pellston Regional Airport, 8 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
