The Chautauqua 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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77° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 73° in 1994.
Chautauqua’s center stands about 1,380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,300 ft to 1,610 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Luce Hill, about 1,980 ft, 15 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conneaut Group, undivided (shale, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.3 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.
Chautauqua straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the northwest side runs to Lake Erie; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of Chautauqua Lake, the Chadakoin, Cassadaga Creek, Conewango Creek, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,200 river miles. One that lands on the northwest side reaches Lake Erie by way of Little Chautauqua Creek and Chautauqua Creek: about 8 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Chautauqua Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Ohio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Chautauqua; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chautauqua has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in February. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Chautauqua normally reaches 51° and falls to 37°. The record high is 73°, in 1994; the record low 21°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.15 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 from the Fredonia Area threaded record (Portland 1 SW, 11 miles north, 570 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
