The Lakefield 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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−2° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 2° in 1911.
Lakefield’s center stands about 790 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 890 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cataract Formation (shale), from the Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 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 Lakefield reaches Lake Michigan by way of Manistique Lake and the Manistique: about 80 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: Manistique Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lakefield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lakefield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lakefield normally reaches 40° and falls to 28°. The record high is 63°, in 1958; the record low 7°, in 1896. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Newberry-Luce County Road Commission, 12 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
