The Ishpeming 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.
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66° on Nov. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is 65° in 2001.
Ishpeming’s center stands about 1,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,260 ft to 1,710 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Summit Mountain, about 1,820 ft, 13 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Baraga Group; Michigamme Formation, undivided (mixed-clastic, metagraywacke), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old.
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 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, schist. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.5 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 Ishpeming reaches Lake Superior by way of Boise Creek and Clark Creek: 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: Dead River Storage Basin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ishpeming; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ishpeming has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 197 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Ishpeming normally reaches 38° and falls to 25°. The record high is 59°, in 2001; the record low 5°, in 1995. The most rain on this date, 0.51 in, fell in 2020.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 from the Marquette County Area threaded record (Marquette Wfo, 9 miles southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
