The Alpha 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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−17° on Nov. 15, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is −11° in 1932.
Alpha’s center stands about 1,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,320 ft to 1,620 ft, a difference of 300 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Michigamme Mountain, about 1,610 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Paint River Group; Lower part (banded-iron-formation, graywacke, slate), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation, graywacke, slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Greenstone, basalt. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, schist, metasedimentary. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Metagabbro. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
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 Alpha reaches Lake Michigan by way of Alpha Creek, Mastodon Creek, East Branch Armstrong Creek, the Brule and the Menominee: about 140 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
120 miles of the trip are on the Menominee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alpha; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alpha has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 67 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 30 inches of water.
On November 14 Alpha normally reaches 38° and falls to 21°. The record high is 66°, in 1999; the record low −4°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 1909.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Stambaugh 2 SSE, 12 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
