The Peru 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
Partly cloudy; warmer
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71° on Nov. 16, 1927, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 70° in 1909.
Peru’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 1,450 ft, a difference of 1,060 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddleback Mountain, about 2,540 ft, 9 miles north-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 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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.
Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 434 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, pelitic-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Early Devonian, 394 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. 5 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 Peru reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Spears Stream, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 110 river miles.
85 miles of the trip are on the Androscoggin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Peru; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Peru has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 94 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Peru normally reaches 45° and falls to 26°. The record high is 66°, in 1930; the record low 3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.35 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Farmington, 18 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
