The Durham 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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71° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1993. Next is 70° in 2022.
Durham’s center stands about 190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 110 ft to 310 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Cat Mountain, about 890 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian - Ordovician Vassalboro Formation (sandstone), from the Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 36×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Schist, slate. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Durham reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of East Branch Chandler Brook, Chandler Brook and the Royal: about 25 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Durham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Durham has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. A normal year brings about 78 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Durham normally reaches 46° and falls to 27°. The record high is 64°, in 2010; the record low 6°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.02 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1993 at Durham, 4 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
