The Monson 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 1920. Next is 66° in 2022.
Monson’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 530 ft to 1,380 ft, a difference of 850 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Barren Mountain, about 2,620 ft, 11 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian Carrabassett Formation (schist), from the Devonian, 359 to 422 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 14×. 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. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzodiorite, quartz-diorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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.
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 Monson reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Monson Stream, Davis Brook, the Big Wilson Stream, the Sebec, the Piscataquis and the Penobscot: about 110 river miles.
Lake on the way: Sebec Lake.
60 miles of the trip are on the Penobscot.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Monson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Monson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 75° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Monson normally reaches 40° and falls to 27°. The record high is 58°, in 1959; the record low 7°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.23 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1920 at Greenville Municipal Airport, 12 miles north-northwest, 530 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
