The Athol 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
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6° on Nov. 11, 1956, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is 7° in 1986.
Athol’s center stands about 550 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 520 ft to 1,250 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Little Monadnock Mountain, about 1,880 ft, 13 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Monson Gneiss (gneiss, amphibolite), from the Late Ordovician to Silurian, 440 to 454 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. 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. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Late Ordovician, 449 to 453 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 440 to 454 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Late Ordovician, 449 to 453 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 440 to 454 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Athol reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Millers and the Connecticut: about 140 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Athol; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Athol has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Athol normally reaches 50° and falls to 32°. The record high is 67°, in 1964; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.89 in, fell in 2022.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Tully Lake, 3 miles north, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
