The Pellston 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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−5° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is −5° in 2019.
Pellston’s center stands about 700 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 1,030 ft, a difference of 380 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Emmet Heights, about 1,340 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Detroit River Group (dolostone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 30×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 1 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 Pellston reaches Lake Huron by way of the Maple, the Indian and the Cheboygan: about 40 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: Burt Lake and Mullett Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pellston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pellston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in February. About 30 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Pellston normally reaches 44° and falls to 28°. The record high is 61°, in 2016; the record low −1°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.52 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Pellston Regional Airport, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
