The Palmyra 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.
14° on Nov. 17, 1996, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1991. Next is 20° in 1995.
Palmyra’s center stands about 15 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 100 ft, a difference of 100 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Camp Hill, about 360 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Potomac Formation, unit 3 (sand, clay), from the Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 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 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Late Cretaceous, 94 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Clay, silt. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 84 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 Palmyra reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Delaware: about 75 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Palmyra; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Palmyra has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Palmyra normally reaches 55° and falls to 37°. The record high is 78°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.91 in, fell in 2006.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1991 at Pennsauken 1 N, 3 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.