The Union 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
73° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 73° in 2020.
Union’s center stands about 980 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 1,250 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Burley Hill, about 1,320 ft, 3 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Brimfield Schist (Includes Hamilton Resevoir Formation) (schist, gneiss), from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist, gneiss. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granofels, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granofels, schist. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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. 7 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 Union reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Wells Brook, Bigelow Brook, the Natchaug, the Shetucket and the Thames: about 70 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Union; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Union has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 64 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Union normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 69°, in 2010; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.97 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at East Brimfield Lake, 8 miles north, 280 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
