The Plainville 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
Mostly 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.
Plainville’s center stands about 250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 140 ft to 420 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Woonsocket Hill, about 600 ft, 12 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 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 50×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, graywacke. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Alkali-granite. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Plainville reaches Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Seekonk and the Providence: about 30 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Plainville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Plainville 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 Plainville 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, 9 miles east, 160 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
