The McMillan 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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−8° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is −6° in 1950.
McMillan’s center stands about 1,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,140 ft to 1,320 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Alligator Eye, about 1,660 ft, 13 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Jacobsville Sandstone, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 26×. 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. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, metagraywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite, migmatite. Age: Paleoarchean to Neoarchean, 2.5 to 3.6 billion years old. About 0.7 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 McMillan reaches Lake Superior by way of the South Branch Ontonagon, the West Branch Ontonagon and the Ontonagon: about 55 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 McMillan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McMillan has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in February. A normal year brings about 180 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 43 inches of water.
On November 14 McMillan normally reaches 39° and falls to 24°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1949.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 at Bergland Dam, 13 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
