The Elkton 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.
5° on Nov. 16, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 9° in 1959.
Elkton’s center stands about 650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 680 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Michigan Formation (shale), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 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.
Elkton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Elkton normally reaches 46° and falls to 32°. The record high is 65°, in 1989; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.01 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at Bad Axe, 9 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.