The Caledonia 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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72° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1916. Next is 69° in 1931.
Caledonia’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 1,030 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kelly Hills, about 1,170 ft, 9 miles southwest.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 32×. 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 13 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.7 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 Caledonia reaches Lake Huron by way of Hubbard Lake, the Lower South Branch Thunder Bay and the Thunder Bay: about 35 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: Hubbard Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Caledonia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Caledonia has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in February. A normal year brings about 78 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 30 inches of water.
On November 14 Caledonia normally reaches 45° and falls to 29°. The record high is 66°, in 1994; the record low 3°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.61 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1916 from the Alpena Area threaded record (Alpena County Regional Airport, 17 miles north, 220 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
