The Long Lake 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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6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 7° in 1996.
Long Lake’s center stands about 840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 830 ft to 990 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Warner Hill, about 1,160 ft, 7 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ellsworth Shale, from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 31×. 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: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.9 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 Long Lake reaches Lake Michigan by way of Long Lake and the Platte: about 35 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lakes on the way: Long Lake and Platte Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Long Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Long Lake has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in February. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Long Lake normally reaches 46° and falls to 32°. The record high is 65°, in 1896; the record low 7°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.13 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport, 9 miles east, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
