The Lakes of the North 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.
Lakes of the North’s center stands about 1,290 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,230 ft to 1,390 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Redner Hill, about 1,470 ft, 15 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Antrim Shale (black-shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million 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 24×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.8 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 Lakes of the North reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Manistee: about 180 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 Lakes of the North; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lakes of the North 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 Lakes of the North 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, 20 miles southwest, 260 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
