The Brookline 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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2° on Nov. 17, 1967, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1885. Next is 5° in 1933.
Brookline’s center stands about 280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 230 ft to 750 ft, a difference of 520 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pack Monadnock Mountain, about 2,270 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gray biotite granite, from the Permian, 252 to 299 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 14×. 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: Permian, 252 to 299 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Schist, granofels. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 375 to 405 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granofels, biotite-schist. Age: Ordovician to Silurian, 422 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 375 to 405 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 0.9 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 Brookline reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Nissitissit, the Nashua and the Merrimack: about 80 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on the Merrimack.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brookline; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brookline has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 53 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Brookline normally reaches 52° and falls to 30°. The record high is 71°, in 1989; the record low 12°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.56 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1885 at Nashua 2 NNW, 10 miles east-northeast, 140 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
