The Superior 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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66° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is 64° in 2012.
Superior’s center stands about 820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 900 ft, a difference of 200 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mission Hill, about 1,050 ft, 7 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Black River Limestone, from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 0.7 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 Superior reaches Lake Huron by way of the Waiska: about 60 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 Superior; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Superior has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 120 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Superior normally reaches 42° and falls to 29°. The record high is 60°, in 1909; the record low −1°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 1.34 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 from the Sault Ste Marie Area threaded record (Sault Ste Marie Sanderson Field, 17 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
