The Marion 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 1891. Next is 70° in 2012.
Marion’s center stands about 790 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 620 ft to 880 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Richardson Hill, about 1,120 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Traverse Group (limestone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. 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: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 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 Marion reaches Lake Michigan by way of Skinner Creek, the Green River, the Cedar River, the Grass and the Torch: about 50 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: Torch Lake and Elk Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marion; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marion has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in February. A normal year brings about 100 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 45° and falls to 34°. The record high is 63°, in 1999; the record low 9°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 1.95 in, fell in 1927.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Charlevoix, 5 miles north, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
