The Franklin Town 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. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1972. Next is 74° in 2020.
Franklin Town’s center stands about 260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is George Hill, about 670 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Dedham Granite, from the Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 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 42×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, graywacke. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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. 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 Franklin Town reaches Boston Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mine Brook and the Charles: about 70 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Franklin Town; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Franklin Town has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 56 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Franklin Town normally reaches 52° and falls to 34°. The record high is 71°, in 1993; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.96 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1972 at Walpole 2, 10 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
