The Strafford 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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4.21 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1908. The next wettest, 3.65 inches, fell in 1985.
Strafford’s center stands about 1,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,330 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Osagean Series (limestone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 44×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 22 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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 Strafford reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pierson Creek, the James, the White River and the Mississippi: about 1,250 river miles.
Lake on the way: Table Rock Lake.
620 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Strafford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Strafford has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 5 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Strafford normally reaches 56° and falls to 35°. The record high is 76°, in 1973; the record low 13°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.15 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Marshfield 4 WSW, 8 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
