The Hanover 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
77° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1960. Next is 76° in 2020.
Hanover’s center stands about 140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 20 ft to 200 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Great Blue Hill, about 630 ft, 15 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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, graywacke. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite, gneiss, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, arkose. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.3 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Hanover reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Drinkwater, the Indian Head and the North River: about 19 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hanover; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hanover has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 51 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 52 inches of water.
On November 14 Hanover normally reaches 53° and falls to 36°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 16°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.75 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1960 at Hingham, 8 miles north-northwest, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
