The Clinton 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.
77° on Nov. 12, 1909, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is 76° in 1973.
Clinton’s center stands about 280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 650 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Scotts Mountain, about 1,290 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Beekmantown Group, Lower Part (dolostone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 20×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 497 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 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. 6 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 Clinton reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the South Branch Raritan and the Raritan: about 55 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Clinton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Clinton has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 27 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 51 inches of water.
On November 14 Clinton normally reaches 54° and falls to 34°. The record high is 72°, in 1964; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Flemington 5 NNW, 5 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.