The Brighton 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
71° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 69° in 1930.
Brighton’s center stands about 910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 1,430 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Moxie Mountain, about 2,920 ft, 15 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Silurian Madrid Formation (quartzite, calc-silicate-rock), from the Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Brighton reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the East Branch Wesserunsett Stream, the Wesserunsett Stream and the Kennebec: about 110 river miles.
80 miles of the trip are on the Kennebec.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brighton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brighton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Brighton normally reaches 45° and falls to 27°. The record high is 69°, in 1930; the record low 5°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1904.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Madison, 20 miles south-southwest, 690 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
