The Chemung 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.
76° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 74° in 1902.
Chemung’s center stands about 850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 770 ft to 1,690 ft, a difference of 920 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Pisgah, about 2,300 ft, 14 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gardeau Formation (shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 18×. 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. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 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 Chemung reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Wynkoop Creek, the Chemung and the Susquehanna: about 310 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 Chemung; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Chemung has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Chemung normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 74°, in 1902; the record low 7°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.94 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Waverly, 5 miles east. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.