The Richmond 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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4° on Nov. 16, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 10° in 1908.
Richmond’s center stands about 770 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 690 ft to 830 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Twombly Mountain, about 1,150 ft, 14 miles west.
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.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 5 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 Richmond reaches Lake St. Clair by way of the Jeffrey Drain, Beaver Creek, Ashery Creek, the Belle and the Saint Clair: 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 Richmond; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Richmond has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 32 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 35 inches of water.
On November 14 Richmond normally reaches 48° and falls to 33°. The record high is 70°, in 1909; the record low 11°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Mt. Clemens Ang Base, 17 miles south, 190 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
