The Free Soil 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.
Free Soil’s center stands about 680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 850 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Udell Hills, about 1,090 ft, 9 miles northeast.
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 55×. 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 23 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 Free Soil reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Big Sable: about 25 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Hamlin Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Free Soil; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Free Soil 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 Free Soil 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, 8 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
