The Amherst 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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Mostly cloudy; warmer
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68° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 68° in 2022.
Amherst’s center stands about 310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 170 ft to 740 ft, a difference of 570 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lead Mountain, about 1,480 ft, 13 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Ordovician Bucksport Formation (sandstone, limestone), from the Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Alkali-feldspar-granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, schist, quartzite. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 450 to 470 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Amherst reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Indian Camp Brook, the West Branch Union and the Union: about 30 river miles.
Lake on the way: Graham Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Amherst; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Amherst has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Amherst normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 63°, in 2005; the record low 8°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.56 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 from the Bangor Area threaded record (Bangor International Airport, 22 miles west, 160 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
