The Madison 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 1893. Next is 69° in 1930.
Madison’s center stands about 450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 290 ft to 660 ft, a difference of 370 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is New Vineyard Mountains, about 2,120 ft, 15 miles west.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, pelitic-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 0.8 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 Madison reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Mill Stream, West Branch Cold Brook, the Wesserunsett Stream and the Kennebec: about 90 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Madison; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Madison has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Madison normally reaches 45° and falls to 27°. The record high is 69°, in 1930; the record low 5°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.03 in, fell in 1904.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Madison, 5 miles west-southwest, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
