The Preston 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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3.56 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 2.67 inches, fell in 2009.
Preston’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 110 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary Deposits Undivided (fine-detrital, coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Silt. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Preston reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hunting Creek and the Choptank: about 25 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Preston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Preston has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. A normal year brings about 14 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Preston normally reaches 58° and falls to 41°. The record high is 79°, in 1955; the record low 22°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.65 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Royal Oak 2 SSW, 15 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
