The Dresden 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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72° on Nov. 12, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 67° in 2020.
Dresden’s center stands about 240 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 340 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Oak Hill, about 720 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ordovician - Precambrian Z Cape Elizabeth Formation (slate), from the Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 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.
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 Dresden reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Eastern and the Kennebec: about 25 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dresden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dresden has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Dresden normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 64°, in 2005; the record low 9°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.28 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Wiscasset Airport, 9 miles south, 190 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
