The Westminster 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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16° on Nov. 16, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1988. Next is 17° in 2017.
Westminster’s center stands about 730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 550 ft to 910 ft, a difference of 360 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Beecher Hill, about 1,120 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 34×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Metabasalt. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Proterozoic, 542 to 2,500 million years old. About 5 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 Westminster reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Copps Branch, Little Pipe Creek, Double Pipe Creek, the Monocacy and the Potomac: about 220 river miles.
160 miles of the trip are on the Potomac.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Westminster; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Westminster has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Westminster normally reaches 54° and falls to 36°. The record high is 73°, in 1993; the record low 22°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.59 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1988 at Millers 4 NE, 14 miles northeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
