The Accident 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
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
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Sunny
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75° on Nov. 17, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1928. Next is 72° in 1928.
Accident’s center stands about 2,370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,970 ft to 2,900 ft, a difference of 930 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wild Turkey Rock, about 3,230 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hampshire Formation (shale, sandstone), from the Devonian, 359 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 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.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Claystone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, clastic. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 Accident reaches the Gulf of America by way of South Branch Bear Creek, Bear Creek, the Youghiogheny, the Monongahela, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,060 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Ohio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Accident; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Accident has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Accident normally reaches 49° and falls to 30°. The record high is 67°, in 1958; the record low 7°, in 2024. The most rain on this date, 0.81 in, fell in 1945.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1928 at Sines Deep Creek, 9 miles southwest, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
