The Gratiot 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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−3° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1901. Next is −1° in 2019.
Gratiot’s center stands about 800 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,000 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is White Hill, about 1,270 ft, 11 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sinnipee Group (dolostone), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
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 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Shale, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million 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.
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 Gratiot reaches the Gulf of America by way of Wolf Creek, the Pecatonica, the Rock River and the Mississippi: about 1,740 river miles.
1,450 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gratiot; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gratiot has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Gratiot normally reaches 46° and falls to 26°. The record high is 71°, in 1971; the record low 0°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.82 in, fell in 1926.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 at Darlington Wwtp, 8 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
