The Salem 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
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
72° on Nov. 11, 2012, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 71° in 2010.
Salem’s center stands about 690 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 640 ft to 760 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dias Hill, about 1,030 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
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 52×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Salem reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Little Rabbit, the Rabbit and the Kalamazoo: about 35 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 Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. About 35 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 48° and falls to 34°. The record high is 62°, in 2009; the record low 9°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Holland Tulip City Airport, 13 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
