The Mount Washington 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.
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70° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1884. Next is 67° in 1993.
Mount Washington’s center stands about 1,630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 780 ft to 2,340 ft, a difference of 1,560 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Everett, about 2,600 ft, 2 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Walloomsac Formation (phyllite, schist), from the Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. 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: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Phyllite, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite, schist. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 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. 5 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 Mount Washington reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of City Brook, Bash Bish Brook, Roeliff Jansen Kill and the Hudson: about 150 river miles.
110 miles of the trip are on the Hudson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mount Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mount Washington has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 53 inches of water.
On November 14 Mount Washington normally reaches 46° and falls to 31°. The record high is 64°, in 1964; the record low 10°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.92 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1884 at Norfolk 2 SW, 15 miles east-southeast, 290 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
