The Houlton 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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67° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 67° in 2022.
Houlton’s center stands about 360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 660 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sam Drew Mountain, about 1,520 ft, 13 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Silurian - Ordovician Carys Mills Formation (siltstone, limestone), from the Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, limestone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Slate, siltstone, quartzite. Age: Silurian, 425 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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 Houlton reaches the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Pearce Brook, the Meduxnekeag and the Saint John: about 160 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Houlton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Houlton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Houlton normally reaches 42° and falls to 26°. The record high is 62°, in 1951; the record low −3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.26 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Houlton Airport, 2 miles east-southeast, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
