The Northford 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.
75° on Nov. 12, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 70° in 2024.
Northford’s center stands about 230 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 70 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 560 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is West Peak, about 1,040 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Shuttle Meadow Formation (shale), from the Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million 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.
Arkose. Age: Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 175 to 237 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt, gabbro. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gneiss, granofels. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million 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.
A raindrop that lands in Northford reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Farm: about 14 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Northford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Northford has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Northford normally reaches 54° and falls to 36°. The record high is 69°, in 1959; the record low 20°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.19 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at New Haven Tweed Airport, 11 miles south-southwest, 220 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.