The Bethlehem 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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−4° on Nov. 17, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is −1° in 1996.
Bethlehem’s center stands about 1,480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 940 ft to 2,160 ft, a difference of 1,220 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Lafayette, about 5,200 ft, 8 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite granite, from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasandstone, metasiltstone, phyllite. Age: Middle Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 485 to 500 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartz-syenite. Age: Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 9 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 Bethlehem reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Barrett Brook, the Ammonoosuc and the Connecticut: about 300 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bethlehem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bethlehem has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Whitefield Mount Washington Regional Airport, 9 miles northeast, 430 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
