The Kalkaska 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1938. Next is 68° in 2020.
Kalkaska’s center stands about 1,040 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 930 ft to 1,160 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twentyone Hill, about 1,270 ft, 11 miles south.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 26×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Kalkaska reaches Lake Michigan by way of the North Branch Boardman and the Boardman: about 40 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kalkaska; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kalkaska has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in February. A normal year brings about 132 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Kalkaska normally reaches 43° and falls to 28°. The record high is 64°, in 1999; the record low 13°, in 1995. The most rain on this date, 0.58 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1938 at Kalkaska, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
