The Utica 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.
13° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1872. Next is 15° in 1986.
Utica’s center stands about 530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 400 ft to 620 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spickert Knob, about 970 ft, 10 miles west.
The section below crosses 9 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.
Limestone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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. 3 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 Utica reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lentzier Creek, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,350 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Utica; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Utica has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 13 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Utica normally reaches 58° and falls to 40°. The record high is 79°, in 1902; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.44 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1872 from the Louisville Area threaded record (Louisville International Airport, 12 miles south-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.