The Bristol 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
72° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 71° in 1989.
Bristol’s center stands about 1,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 1,760 ft, a difference of 1,330 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Cardigan, about 3,110 ft, 10 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Perry Mountain Formation, undivided (quartzite, metasedimentary), from the Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Silurian, 434 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. 2 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 Bristol reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Pemigewasset and the Merrimack: about 130 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bristol; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bristol has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bristol normally reaches 46° and falls to 27°. The record high is 65°, in 2010; the record low 9°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1975.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Franklin Falls Dam, 11 miles south-southeast, 650 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
