The Sterling 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
75° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1974. Next is 70° in 2020.
Sterling’s center stands about 310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 260 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 440 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jerimoth Hill, about 860 ft, 10 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Scituate Granite Gneiss, from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gabbro. Age: Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mylonite, gneiss. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 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. 2 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 Sterling reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Moosup, the Quinebaug, the Shetucket and the Thames: about 50 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sterling; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sterling has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 54 inches of water.
On November 14 Sterling normally reaches 50° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.03 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1974 at North Foster 1 E, 11 miles north-northeast, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
