The Norton 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
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
76° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1913. Next is 73° in 2022.
Norton’s center stands about 100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 60 ft to 190 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Beacon Pole Hill, about 550 ft, 14 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rhode Island Formation (sandstone, graywacke), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 49×. 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 17 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Syenite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, graywacke. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.9 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 Norton reaches Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Threemile and the Taunton: about 25 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Norton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Norton has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 50 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 52 inches of water.
On November 14 Norton normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 13°, in 1981. The most rain on this date, 1.29 in, fell in 1982.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1913 at Norton West, 2 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
