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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
73° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1892. Next is 67° in 1953.
Marion’s center stands about 1,110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 1,220 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blue Mountain, about 1,260 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Saginaw Formation (sandstone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 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 Dishwash Creek, Whisky Creek, the Muskegon and the Middle Channel Muskegon: about 150 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: Muskegon 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 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 33 inches of water.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 44° and falls to 27°. The record high is 65°, in 1953; the record low 1°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.77 in, fell in 1980.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1892 at Lake City Experiment Farm, 15 miles north-northwest, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
