The Banks 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 70° in 2012.
Banks’s center stands about 830 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 900 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Richardson Hill, about 1,120 ft, 10 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Antrim Shale (black-shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 40×. 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: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
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 Banks reaches Lake Michigan by way of Toad Creek, Ogletree Creek, the Green River, the Cedar River, the Grass and the Torch: about 45 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: Torch Lake and Elk Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Banks; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Banks has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in February. A normal year brings about 100 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Banks normally reaches 45° and falls to 34°. The record high is 63°, in 1999; the record low 9°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 1.95 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Charlevoix, 10 miles north, 240 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
