The Willimantic 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.
71° on Nov. 16, 2001, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 71° in 2020.
Willimantic’s center stands about 370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 160 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Westford Hill, about 1,010 ft, 14 miles north.
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 26×. 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, calc-silicate-rock. 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 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Biotite-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. 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 Willimantic reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Shetucket and the Thames: about 35 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Willimantic; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Willimantic has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Willimantic normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 68°, in 2016; the record low 14°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.76 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Willimantic Windham Airport, 2 miles northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.