The West Ishpeming 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. 13, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1961. Next is 65° in 2001.
West Ishpeming’s center stands about 1,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,370 ft to 1,720 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Summit Mountain, about 1,820 ft, 4 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Baraga Group; Michigamme Formation; Gray to black slate, from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion 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 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, schist. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Quartzite, slate, banded-iron-formation. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2.5 billion years old. About 0.3 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 West Ishpeming reaches Lake Superior by way of Carp Creek and the Carp: about 25 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 West Ishpeming; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
West Ishpeming has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 197 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 West Ishpeming normally reaches 38° and falls to 25°. The record high is 59°, in 2001; the record low 5°, in 1995. The most rain on this date, 0.51 in, fell in 2020.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 from the Marquette County Area threaded record (Marquette Wfo, 8 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
