The Pittsfield 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
70° on Nov. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 69° in 1964.
Pittsfield’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 960 ft to 1,360 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Greylock, about 3,490 ft, 14 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Stockbridge Formation (marble), from the Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 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.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Phyllite. 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. 8 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 Pittsfield reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Housatonic: about 140 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pittsfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pittsfield 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 Pittsfield 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, 3 miles southwest, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
