The Chesterfield 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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0° on Nov. 16, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 6° in 1905.
Chesterfield’s center stands about 840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 420 ft to 1,350 ft, a difference of 930 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jolly Mountain, about 2,040 ft, 15 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rangeley Formation (granofels, mica-schist), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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 5 mi of the line.
Granite, granodiorite, tonalite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granofels, mica-schist. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss. Age: Early Devonian, 401 to 405 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. 8 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 Chesterfield reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Partridge Brook and the Connecticut: about 170 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Chesterfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chesterfield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. A normal year brings about 60 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Chesterfield normally reaches 47° and falls to 27°. The record high is 68°, in 1989; the record low 6°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.61 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Keene, 8 miles east-northeast, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
