The Hancock 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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81° on Nov. 15, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 80° in 1931.
Hancock’s center stands about 440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 410 ft to 840 ft, a difference of 430 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Emmaville Mountain, about 2,280 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hamilton Group (including Mahantango Formation and Marcellus Shale), and including Tioga Metabentontite Bed, and Needmore Shale, 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 15×. 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, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Late Devonian, 374 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.9 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 Hancock reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Tonoloway Creek and the Potomac: about 240 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hancock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hancock has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hancock normally reaches 56° and falls to 35°. The record high is 77°, in 1989; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.41 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 from the Martinsburg Area threaded record (Martinsburg Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, 23 miles south-southeast, 100 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
