The Basking Ridge 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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78° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is 76° in 1973.
Basking Ridge’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 230 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Arlington, about 1,250 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Towaco Formation (sandstone, siltstone-mudstone), from the Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. 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: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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. 9 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 Basking Ridge reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Harrisons Brook, the Dead and the Passaic: about 80 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Basking Ridge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Basking Ridge has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 24 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Basking Ridge normally reaches 55° and falls to 35°. The record high is 71°, in 1964; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.51 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 at Canoe Brook, 11 miles east-northeast, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
