The Washington 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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10° on Nov. 16, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1937. Next is 14° in 1956.
Washington’s center stands about 760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 1,050 ft, a difference of 600 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mohawk Mountain, about 1,680 ft, 13 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ratlum Mountain Schist plus Amphibolite unit [in Ratlum Mountain Schist] (schist, granofels, amphibolite), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. 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, granofels. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Schist, granofels. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, gneiss. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arkose, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, granofels, amphibolite. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 6 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 Washington reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Shepaug and the Housatonic: about 50 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Washington has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 49 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 53 inches of water.
On November 14 Washington normally reaches 51° and falls to 34°. The record high is 73°, in 1993; the record low 16°, in 1939. The most rain on this date, 2.42 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1937 at Danbury, 17 miles south-southwest, 360 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
