The Royalston 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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6° on Nov. 11, 1956, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1949. Next is 7° in 1986.
Royalston’s center stands about 1,010 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 1,240 ft, a difference of 610 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Monadnock Mountain, about 3,130 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hardwick Tonalite (gneiss), from the Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 20×. 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: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, tonalite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Late Ordovician, 449 to 453 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Royalston reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Tully, the Millers and the Connecticut: about 160 river miles.
130 miles of the trip are on the Connecticut.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Royalston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Royalston has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 52 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Royalston normally reaches 50° and falls to 32°. The record high is 67°, in 1964; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.89 in, fell in 2022.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Tully Lake, 3 miles southwest, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
