The Foster 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.
74° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1951. Next is 71° in 2020.
Foster’s center stands about 1,250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 1,340 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wagon Wheel Hill, about 1,500 ft, 5 miles east-northeast.
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 36×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 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 Foster reaches Lake Huron by way of East Creek, the South Branch Au Sable and the Au Sable: about 140 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
100 miles of the trip are on the Au Sable.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Foster; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Foster has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in February. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Foster normally reaches 44° and falls to 27°. The record high is 65°, in 1953; the record low 3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.32 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1951 at Lupton 1 S, 13 miles east, 340 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.