The Alfred 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.
Chance of showers
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Mostly cloudy
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Partly cloudy
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76° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 72° in 2012.
Alfred’s center stands about 1,780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,540 ft to 2,340 ft, a difference of 800 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jackson Hill, about 2,440 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Machias Formation (shale, siltstone, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Alfred reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Canacadea Creek, the Tioga, the Chemung and the Susquehanna: about 390 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
250 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alfred; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alfred has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 82 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Alfred normally reaches 47° and falls to 27°. The record high is 67°, in 1994; the record low 7°, in 1939. The most rain on this date, 1.91 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Alfred, 2 miles northeast, 140 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
