The Dickson 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
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
7° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is 10° in 1911.
Dickson’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 1,130 ft, a difference of 500 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Briar Hill, about 1,740 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
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 24×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Dickson reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Manistee: about 30 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 Dickson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dickson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 36 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Dickson normally reaches 47° and falls to 34°. The record high is 64°, in 1909; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.38 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 at Manistee 3 SE, 18 miles west-southwest, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
