The Canaan 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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Partly cloudy; warmer
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70° on Nov. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1925. Next is 69° in 1964.
Canaan’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 770 ft to 1,590 ft, a difference of 820 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Brodie Mountain, about 2,610 ft, 15 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Stockbridge Formation (marble), from the Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Slate, phyllite, schist. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 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. 3 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 Canaan reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Stony Kill, Kinderhook Creek and the Hudson: about 150 river miles.
120 miles of the trip are on the Hudson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Canaan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Canaan has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Canaan normally reaches 47° and falls to 30°. The record high is 63°, in 1959; the record low 13°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.45 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 at Pittsfield Municipal Airport, 8 miles east, 290 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
