The Olean 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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5.94 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.17 inches, fell in 1985.
Olean’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 950 ft, a difference of 240 ft: rolling country.
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 47×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Sandstone, chert. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.8 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 Olean reaches the Gulf of America by way of Blythes Creek, South Moreau Creek, the Moreau, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,360 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Olean; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Olean has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Olean normally reaches 56° and falls to 36°. The record high is 84°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.22 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Eldon, 5 miles south-southwest, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
