The Salem 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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12° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1984. Next is 15° in 1986.
Salem’s center stands about 30 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 180 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Holt Hill, about 450 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Diorite and gabbro (diorite, gabbro), from the Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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 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.
Diorite, gabbro. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Quartzite, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Alkali-granite, quartz-syenite. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Alkali-granite. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Rhyolite, felsic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic, 593 to 599 million years old. About 0.6 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 Salem reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Forest, Strongwater Brook and the North River: about 7 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salem has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 39 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Salem normally reaches 51° and falls to 33°. The record high is 71°, in 1989; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.91 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1984 at Marblehead, 2 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
