The Tuftonboro 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.
73° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1926. Next is 70° in 2022.
Tuftonboro’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 590 ft to 1,700 ft, a difference of 1,110 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Shaw, about 2,970 ft, 4 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Littleton Formation, undivided (metagraywacke), from the Early Devonian, 410 to 414 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Rhyolite, granite. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Tonalite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Early Devonian, 410 to 414 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metaclastic. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Quartz-syenite. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Tuftonboro reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Twentymile Brook, the Winnipesaukee and the Merrimack: about 150 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Winnipesaukee.
120 miles of the trip are on the Merrimack.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Tuftonboro; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tuftonboro has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Tuftonboro normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 62°, in 2010; the record low 8°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 3.40 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1926 at Lakeport 2, 16 miles southwest, 490 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.