The Ashland 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 1926. Next is 70° in 2022.
Ashland’s center stands about 590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 460 ft to 1,330 ft, a difference of 870 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Cardigan, about 3,110 ft, 14 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Kinsman Granodiorite, from the Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Tonalite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metasedimentary. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Ashland reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Squam, the Pemigewasset and the Merrimack: about 140 river miles.
120 miles of the trip are on the Merrimack.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ashland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ashland has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Ashland normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 62°, in 2010; the record low 8°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 3.40 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1926 at Lakeport 2, 13 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
