The Plainfield 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, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1913. Next is 73° in 2022.
Plainfield’s center stands about 910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 1,000 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Maltby Hills, about 1,460 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
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 29×. 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 16 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 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 Plainfield reaches Lake Huron by way of Smith Creek and the East Branch Au Gres: about 25 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 Plainfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Plainfield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in February. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Plainfield normally reaches 45° and falls to 28°. The record high is 64°, in 1958; the record low 6°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.45 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1913 at Hale Loud Dam, 4 miles northeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
