The Reading 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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76° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 75° in 2020.
Reading’s center stands about 110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 60 ft to 220 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Prospect Hill, about 480 ft, 12 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Peabody Granite (alkali-granite), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 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, pegmatite. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 593 to 599 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Alkali-granite. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 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. 5 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 Reading reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Saugus: about 14 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Reading; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Reading has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 48 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Reading normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 70°, in 2016; the record low 13°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 3.27 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 at Middleton, 6 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
