The Tower 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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−10° on Nov. 15, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1913. Next is −10° in 1959.
Tower’s center stands about 770 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 920 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blats Hill, about 1,010 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Traverse Group (limestone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 40×. 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: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.4 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 Tower reaches Lake Huron by way of the Black River and the Cheboygan: about 30 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 Tower; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tower has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in February. A normal year brings about 84 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 32 inches of water.
On November 14 Tower normally reaches 43° and falls to 26°. The record high is 63°, in 1999; the record low 7°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.68 in, fell in 1992.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1913 at Vanderbilt 11 ENE, 14 miles south-southwest, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
