The Bendon 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 7° in 1996.
Bendon’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 820 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Warner Hill, about 1,160 ft, 9 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ellsworth Shale, from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 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 Bendon reaches Lake Michigan by way of Kinney Creek, Brundage Creek and the Platte: about 20 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Platte Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bendon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bendon has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in February. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bendon normally reaches 46° and falls to 32°. The record high is 65°, in 1896; the record low 7°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.13 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport, 15 miles east-northeast, 250 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
