The Plainfield 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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12° on Nov. 16, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 14° in 1956.
Plainfield’s center stands about 200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 110 ft to 600 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jerimoth Hill, about 860 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mylonite along Paleozoic faults (mylonite, gneiss), from the Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 28×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mylonite, gneiss. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 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.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Plainfield reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Horse Brook, the Quinebaug, the Shetucket and the Thames: about 35 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Plainfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Plainfield has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 28 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 52 inches of water.
On November 14 Plainfield normally reaches 54° and falls to 35°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.25 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Norwich Public Utility Plant, 13 miles southwest, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
