The Washington 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
70° on Nov. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 69° in 1964.
Washington’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,310 ft to 2,060 ft, a difference of 750 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Widow Whites Peak, about 2,430 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tyringham Gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 17 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granofels, schist. Age: Early Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, mica-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 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. 11 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 Washington reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Housatonic: about 130 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Washington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Washington has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Washington normally reaches 47° and falls to 30°. The record high is 63°, in 1959; the record low 13°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.45 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 at Pittsfield Municipal Airport, 10 miles west-northwest, 320 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
