The South Bristol 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
72° on Nov. 12, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 67° in 2020.
South Bristol’s center stands about 50 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 200 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Hunger, about 310 ft, 8 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ordovician - Precambrian Z Cape Elizabeth Formation (slate), from the Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, limestone. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Ordovician, 445 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 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.
Rain that falls on South Bristol runs straight into the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Bristol; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Bristol has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 South Bristol normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 64°, in 2005; the record low 9°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.28 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Wiscasset Airport, 10 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
