The Needham 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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77° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 76° in 1993.
Needham’s center stands about 180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 80 ft to 300 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Great Blue Hill, about 630 ft, 8 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mattapan Volcanic Complex (rhyolite), from the Neoproterozoic, 599 to 605 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 50×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 599 to 605 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Argillite. 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.
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 Needham reaches Boston Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Rosemary Brook and the Charles: about 20 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Needham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Needham has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Needham normally reaches 53° and falls to 35°. The record high is 69°, in 1964; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.80 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Jamaica Plain, 6 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
