The Charlton 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
75° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1959. Next is 73° in 2020.
Charlton’s center stands about 890 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 550 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Asnebumskit Hill, about 1,400 ft, 12 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Paxton Formation (granofels, schist), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Granofels, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Charlton reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Quinebaug, the Shetucket and the Thames: about 80 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on the Quinebaug.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charlton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charlton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 47 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Charlton normally reaches 51° and falls to 30°. The record high is 68°, in 1964; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.12 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Buffumville Lake, 3 miles east-southeast, 370 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
