The Kensington 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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5° on Nov. 17, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1904. Next is 6° in 1924.
Kensington’s center stands about 80 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 50 ft to 610 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Johnnycake Mountain, about 1,190 ft, 14 miles northwest.
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 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Arkose, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Arkose. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 175 to 237 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist, granofels. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basalt, gabbro. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 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. 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.
A raindrop that lands in Kensington reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Mattabesset and the Connecticut: about 45 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kensington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kensington has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Kensington normally reaches 53° and falls to 35°. The record high is 71°, in 1959; the record low 15°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.07 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1904 at Hartford Brainard Field, 9 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
