The Cattaraugus 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1941. Next is 70° in 1956.
Cattaraugus’s center stands about 1,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,170 ft to 1,990 ft, a difference of 820 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Shutts Hill, about 2,460 ft, 8 miles south-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 14×. 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 12 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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.
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 Cattaraugus reaches Lake Erie by way of South Branch Cattaraugus Creek and Cattaraugus Creek: about 35 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cattaraugus; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cattaraugus has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 133 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Cattaraugus normally reaches 47° and falls to 29°. The record high is 67°, in 2010; the record low 11°, in 1942. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1941 at Little Valley, 6 miles south-southeast, 240 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
