The Hancock 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.
Hancock’s center stands about 870 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 1,670 ft, a difference of 1,000 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Monadnock Mountain, about 3,130 ft, 10 miles 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 12×. 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.
Quartz-diorite, tonalite, granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metasedimentary. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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.
Granofels, calc-silicate-rock, pelitic-schist. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 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. 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 Hancock reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hosley Brook, Davis Brook, the Contoocook and the Merrimack: about 160 river miles.
100 miles of the trip are on the Merrimack.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hancock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hancock 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 Hancock 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, 18 miles west, 360 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
