The Biwabik 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.
Biwabik’s center stands about 1,450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,350 ft to 1,770 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pike Mountain, about 1,950 ft, 5 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gunflint (~1,878 Ma), Biwabik, and Emily Iron Formations (banded-iron-formation, sedimentary-breccia), from the Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 2 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 33×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Slate, graywacke. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 2 billion years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Tonalite, granodiorite, diorite. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Banded-iron-formation, sedimentary-breccia. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.8 to 2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, greenstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Graywacke, mudstone. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 1 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.
Biwabik straddles the Laurentian Divide. Rain on the north 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 Embarrass and the Saint Louis: about 140 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 north side reaches Hudson Bay by way of the Pike, the Vermilion, the Rainy, the Winnipeg and the Nelson: about 1,100 river miles. Past the border it runs north through Canada to Hudson Bay.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Biwabik; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Biwabik 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 Biwabik 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, 9 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
