The Lonaconing 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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8° on Nov. 14, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 12° in 1967.
Lonaconing’s center stands about 1,530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,390 ft to 2,730 ft, a difference of 1,340 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pinnacle, about 3,090 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conemaugh Formation (claystone, shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 16 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Claystone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Late Devonian, 374 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Claystone, limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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. 10 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 Lonaconing reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Jackson Run, Georges Creek, the North Branch Potomac and the Potomac: about 350 river miles.
290 miles of the trip are on the Potomac.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lonaconing; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lonaconing has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. About 41 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lonaconing normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 70°, in 1955; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Savage River Dam, 9 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
