The Muskegon 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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9° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 11° in 1911.
Muskegon’s center stands about 580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 570 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Marshall Sandstone, from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 64×. 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: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 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 Muskegon reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Middle Channel Muskegon: about 8 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 Muskegon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Muskegon has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 87 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Muskegon normally reaches 48° and falls to 34°. The record high is 64°, in 1964; the record low 15°, in 1995. The most rain on this date, 1.76 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 from the Muskegon Area threaded record (Muskegon County Airport, 7 miles south-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
