The Hancock 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 sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
70° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 70° in 2023.
Hancock’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 590 ft to 1,180 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tolonen Hill, about 1,510 ft, 8 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Portage Lake Volcanics (basalt), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old.
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 22×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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.
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 Hancock reaches Lake Superior by way of Torch Lake and the Portage: about 14 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: Torch Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hancock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hancock has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in February. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hancock normally reaches 38° and falls to 27°. The record high is 59°, in 1909; the record low 6°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at Hancock Houghton County Airport, 5 miles east-northeast, 360 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
