The Peru 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. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 69° in 1964.
Peru’s center stands about 2,050 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,500 ft to 2,140 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddle Ball Mountain, about 3,260 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gray, well-layered biotite-plagioclase-quartz gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 16 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, mica-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartz-feldspar-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. 10 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 Peru reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Tuttle Brook, the Middle Branch Westfield, the Westfield and the Connecticut: about 120 river miles.
75 miles of the trip are on the Connecticut.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Peru; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Peru has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Peru normally reaches 47° and falls to 30°. The record high is 63°, in 1959; the record low 13°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.45 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 at Pittsfield Municipal Airport, 12 miles west, 900 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
