The Kearny 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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80° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1843. Next is 77° in 1973.
Kearny’s center stands about 110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 180 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is High Mountain, about 890 ft, 14 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Passaic Formation Sandstone and Siltstone facies (sandstone, siltstone), from the Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 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 27×. 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-mudstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Basalt. 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 2 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 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. 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 Kearny reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Passaic: about 4 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Kearny; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Kearny has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 32 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Kearny normally reaches 56° and falls to 39°. The record high is 73°, in 1993; the record low 18°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.81 in, fell in 1871.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1843 from the Newark Area threaded record (Newark Liberty International Airport, 6 miles south-southwest, 100 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
