The Essex Fells 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.
Essex Fells’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 180 ft to 670 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cobb Hill, about 1,210 ft, 15 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Preakness Basalt, from the Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 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. 8 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 Essex Fells reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Passaic: about 50 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Essex Fells; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Essex Fells 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 Essex Fells 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, 7 miles south-southwest, 320 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
