The Pepperell 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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2° on Nov. 17, 1967, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is 5° in 1933.
Pepperell’s center stands about 250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 510 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Blood Hill, about 1,520 ft, 14 miles west.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metaclastic. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite, pegmatite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 375 to 405 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granofels, schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 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. 6 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 Pepperell reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Sucker Brook, the Nashua and the Merrimack: about 75 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on the Merrimack.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pepperell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pepperell has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 53 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Pepperell normally reaches 52° and falls to 30°. The record high is 71°, in 1989; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.56 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 at Nashua 2 NNW, 10 miles northeast, 120 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
