The Rangeley 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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68° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1969. Next is 67° in 2002.
Rangeley’s center stands about 1,660 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,510 ft to 2,170 ft, a difference of 660 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Saddleback Mountain, about 4,100 ft, 11 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ordovician Quimby Formation (shale, graywacke), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, graywacke. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gabbro, diorite, ultramafic. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 1 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 Rangeley reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Rangeley Lake, Lower Richardson Lake, the Rapid, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 230 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lower Richardson Lake, Umbagog Lake and Rangeley Lake.
180 miles of the trip are on the Androscoggin.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rangeley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rangeley has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 0° in January. A normal year brings about 123 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 43 inches of water.
On November 14 Rangeley normally reaches 41° and falls to 24°. The record high is 60°, in 2010; the record low 4°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.65 in, fell in 2018.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1969 at Rangeley, 4 miles east, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
