The Caroline 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
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 72° in 1909.
Caroline’s center stands about 1,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,160 ft to 1,910 ft, a difference of 750 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Virgil Mountain, about 2,130 ft, 11 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sonyea Group (shale, siltstone), 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 13×. 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. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 17 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 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.
Caroline straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the southeast side runs to Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to Lake Ontario.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Ontario by way of Sixmile Creek, the Seneca and the Oswego: about 130 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the southeast side reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Boyer Creek, West Branch Owego Creek, Owego Creek and the Susquehanna: about 340 river miles.
Lake on the way: Cayuga Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Caroline; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Caroline has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 63 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 Caroline normally reaches 47° and falls to 31°. The record high is 71°, in 1902; the record low 9°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.83 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Ithaca Cornell University, 9 miles west-northwest, 320 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
