The Canton 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; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
71° on Nov. 16, 1927, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 70° in 1909.
Canton’s center stands about 640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 1,410 ft, a difference of 1,050 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddleback Mountain, about 2,540 ft, 10 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian Sangerville Formation, Anasagunticook member (metasandstone), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, pelitic-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. 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.
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 Canton reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 90 river miles.
75 miles of the trip are on the Androscoggin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Canton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Canton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 94 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Canton normally reaches 45° and falls to 26°. The record high is 66°, in 1930; the record low 3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.35 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Farmington, 16 miles north-northeast, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
