The Fairfield 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 1895. Next is 71° in 2022.
Fairfield’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 50 ft to 390 ft, a difference of 340 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sanford Hill, about 880 ft, 15 miles southeast.
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 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Schist, slate. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 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. 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 Fairfield reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Holland Brook and the Kennebec: about 65 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Fairfield normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 66°, in 1930; the record low 7°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.01 in, fell in 1904.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Waterville Treatment Plt, 5 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
