The Darlington 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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78° on Nov. 12, 1999, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1936. Next is 77° in 1993.
Darlington’s center stands about 340 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 10 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Goat Hill, about 500 ft, 8 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quartz Gabbro and Quartz Diorite Gneiss (gabbro, quartz-diorite), from the Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 29×. 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, quartz-diorite, granodiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 500 to 600 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, muscovite-schist. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gabbro. Age: Proterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 2,500 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, amphibolite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 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. 6 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 Darlington reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Lake Aldred and the Susquehanna: about 12 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Darlington; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Darlington has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Darlington normally reaches 56° and falls to 37°. The record high is 75°, in 1955; the record low 22°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.02 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1936 at Conowingo Dam, here, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
