The Medford 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.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
73° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is 67° in 2022.
Medford’s center stands about 360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 230 ft to 500 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mattamiscontis Mountain, about 1,280 ft, 13 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Silurian Madrid Formation (quartzite, calc-silicate-rock), from the Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 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.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Slate, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, slate. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Medford reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Little Schoodic Stream, the Piscataquis and the Penobscot: about 75 river miles.
60 miles of the trip are on the Penobscot.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Medford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Medford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 4° in January. A normal year brings about 77 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Medford normally reaches 45° and falls to 26°. The record high is 63°, in 2010; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Dover-Foxcroft Wwtp, 18 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
