The Babbitt 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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−16° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1994. Next is −16° in 2019.
Babbitt’s center stands about 1,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,410 ft to 1,860 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jasper Peak, about 1,680 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Monzonite, quartz monzonite, and granodiorite (monzonite, quartz-monzonite, granodiorite), from the Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Monzonite, quartz-monzonite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, greenstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Anorthosite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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.
Babbitt straddles the Laurentian Divide. Rain on the east side runs to Hudson Bay; most of the rest goes to Lake Superior.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Superior by way of the Partridge and the Saint Louis: about 180 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the east side reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Dunka, the South Kawishiwi, the Bottle, the Loon, the Rainy, the Winnipeg and the Nelson: about 1,130 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
140 miles of the trip are on the Saint Louis.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Babbitt; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Babbitt has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about −7° in January. About 28 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Babbitt normally reaches 35° and falls to 18°. The record high is 58°, in 2016; the record low −11°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 0.64 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1994 at Embarrass, 14 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
