The Cambridge 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. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 6° in 1933.
Cambridge’s center stands about 970 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 910 ft to 1,100 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Prospect Hill, about 1,230 ft, 4 miles west.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 54×. 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: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 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 Cambridge reaches Lake Erie by way of Wolf Creek, the South Branch River Raisin and the River Raisin: about 110 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
80 miles of the trip are on the River Raisin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cambridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cambridge has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 26 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Cambridge normally reaches 50° and falls to 31°. The record high is 72°, in 1909; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1911.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at Adrian 2 NNE, 11 miles southeast, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
