The Whitewater 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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6° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1896. Next is 7° in 1996.
Whitewater’s center stands about 890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 1,040 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hickory Hill, about 1,040 ft, 13 miles west.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.8 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 Whitewater reaches Lake Michigan by way of Bissell Creek and Williamsburg Creek: about 12 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Elk Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Whitewater; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Whitewater has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in February. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Whitewater normally reaches 46° and falls to 32°. The record high is 65°, in 1896; the record low 7°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.13 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Traverse City Cherry Capital Airport, 9 miles west, 280 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
