The Pittston 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.
71° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 71° in 2022.
Pittston’s center stands about 160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 10 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Allen Hill, about 670 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ordovician - Precambrian Z Cushing Formation (felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic), from the Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 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 37×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Felsic-volcanic, mafic-volcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 428 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.3 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 Pittston reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Eastern and the Kennebec: about 35 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Pittston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pittston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Pittston normally reaches 46° and falls to 31°. The record high is 63°, in 2011; the record low 10°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.41 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Augusta State Airport, 10 miles north-northwest, 190 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.