The Rowley 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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11° on Nov. 16, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1992. Next is 14° in 2019.
Rowley’s center stands about 60 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 240 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Holt Hill, about 450 ft, 13 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Diorite at Rowley, from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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.
Amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Diorite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Tonalite, diorite. Age: Silurian, 425 to 435 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 478 to 523 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mudstone, siltstone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 414 to 425 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.
Rain that falls on Rowley runs only a short way, about 2 miles, to the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rowley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rowley has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 67 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Rowley normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 69°, in 1993; the record low 14°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.55 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1992 at Groveland, 9 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
