The Columbus 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; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
−2° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 2° in 1911.
Columbus’s center stands about 910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 1,010 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Utica Shale (black-shale), from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 47×. 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 Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million 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. 2 smaller units 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 Columbus reaches Lake Superior by way of Red Creek and the Tahquamenon: about 70 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Columbus; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Columbus has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Columbus normally reaches 40° and falls to 28°. The record high is 63°, in 1958; the record low 7°, in 1896. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Newberry-Luce County Road Commission, 11 miles east-southeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
