The Alexander 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1917. Next is 68° in 2012.
Alexander’s center stands about 400 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 170 ft to 590 ft, a difference of 420 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Harmon Mountain, about 750 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ordovician - Cambrian Cookson Formation, sulfidic quartzose sandstone, from the Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 36×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gabbro, diorite, ultramafic. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Early Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 0.6 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 Alexander reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Sixteenth Stream and the Dennys: about 30 river miles.
Lake on the way: Meddybemps Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alexander; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alexander has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Alexander normally reaches 46° and falls to 34°. The record high is 63°, in 2012; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.85 in, fell in 1975.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1917 at Woodland, 6 miles northeast, 280 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
