The Upton 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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75° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1959. Next is 73° in 2020.
Upton’s center stands about 310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 270 ft to 620 ft, a difference of 350 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Denny Hill, about 970 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Scituate Granite Gneiss, 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 31×. 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. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Schist, gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 615 to 645 million years old. About 2 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. 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 Upton reaches Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Miscoe Brook, the Blackstone, the Seekonk and the Providence: about 45 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Upton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Upton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 47 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Upton normally reaches 51° and falls to 30°. The record high is 68°, in 1964; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.12 in, fell in 1988.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Buffumville Lake, 16 miles west-southwest, 210 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
