The Topsfield 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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73° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 69° in 2006.
Topsfield’s center stands about 490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 320 ft to 950 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Musquash Mountain, about 1,230 ft, 4 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Devonian - Ordovician Flume Ridge Formation (graywacke), from the Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 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 24×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Graywacke. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 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 Topsfield reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Woodcock Brook, the Deadman Stream, the East Branch Big Musquash Stream, the Big Musquash Stream and the Saint Croix: about 75 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lewy Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Topsfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Topsfield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Topsfield normally reaches 45° and falls to 29°. The record high is 67°, in 2010; the record low 7°, in 1990. The most rain on this date, 1.60 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Grand Lake Stream, 17 miles south, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
