The Henniker 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.
−1° on Nov. 17, 1967, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1868. Next is 0° in 1972.
Henniker’s center stands about 450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 1,220 ft, a difference of 830 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Kearsarge, about 2,910 ft, 14 miles north.
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 5 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.
Granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Quartz-diorite, tonalite, granodiorite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, metasedimentary. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Henniker reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Amey Brook, the Contoocook and the Merrimack: about 120 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 Henniker; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Henniker has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 68 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Henniker normally reaches 49° and falls to 29°. The record high is 71°, in 1989; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.92 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1868 from the Concord Area threaded record (Concord Municipal Airport, 16 miles east, 110 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.