The Cambridge 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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73° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1947. Next is 70° in 2002.
Cambridge’s center stands about 370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 300 ft to 800 ft, a difference of 500 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Kelly Mountain, about 1,680 ft, 13 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian Sangerville Formation (shale, sandstone), from the Silurian, 428 to 434 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 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.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Schist, slate. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 434 million years old. About 1 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 Cambridge reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Jimmy Brook, the Main Stream Sebasticook, the Sebasticook and the Kennebec: about 120 river miles.
60 miles of the trip are on the Kennebec.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cambridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cambridge has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 72 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Cambridge normally reaches 47° and falls to 28°. The record high is 67°, in 2022; the record low 5°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1949.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1947 at Corinna, 13 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
