The Appleton 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
70° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1976. Next is 68° in 2022.
Appleton’s center stands about 170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 80 ft to 820 ft, a difference of 740 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Megunticook, about 1,370 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Precambrian Z Appleton Ridge Formation (schist), from the Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist, granulite. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Slate, schist, quartzite. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 450 to 470 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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. 7 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 Appleton reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Pettengill Stream and the Medomak: about 25 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Appleton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Appleton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 69 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 56 inches of water.
On November 14 Appleton normally reaches 47° and falls to 32°. The record high is 65°, in 2010; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.47 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1976 at West Rockport 1 NNW, 8 miles southeast, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
