The Carrabassett Valley 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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68° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1969. Next is 67° in 2002.
Carrabassett Valley’s center stands about 1,910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,020 ft to 3,430 ft, a difference of 2,410 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarloaf Mountain, about 4,210 ft, 3 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian gabbro - ultramafic rocks (gabbro, ultramafic), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gabbro, ultramafic. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gabbro, diorite, ultramafic. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Early Devonian, 410 to 414 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. 4 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 Carrabassett Valley reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Redington Pond Outlet, the Carrabassett and the Kennebec: about 140 river miles.
100 miles of the trip are on the Kennebec.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Carrabassett Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Carrabassett Valley has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 123 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 43 inches of water.
On November 14 Carrabassett Valley normally reaches 41° and falls to 24°. The record high is 60°, in 2010; the record low 4°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1969 at Rangeley, 19 miles west-southwest, 380 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
