The Norwell 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. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1960. Next is 76° in 2020.
Norwell’s center stands about 90 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 240 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kitchamakin Hill, about 510 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 2 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 15 mi of the line.
Sandstone, graywacke. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.7 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 Norwell reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Wildcat Creek, Third Herring Brook and the North River: about 14 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Norwell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Norwell 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 Norwell 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 northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
