The Torch Lake 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 sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Chance of showers
Chance of showers
70° on Nov. 17, 1953, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1887. Next is 70° in 2023.
Torch Lake’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 590 ft to 820 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Arcadian Hill, about 1,230 ft, 9 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Jacobsville Sandstone, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 4 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 Torch Lake reaches Lake Superior by way of Mud Lake Creek: about 5 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 Torch Lake; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Torch Lake has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in February. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Torch Lake normally reaches 38° and falls to 27°. The record high is 59°, in 1909; the record low 6°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1944.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 at Hancock Houghton County Airport, 7 miles northwest, 340 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
