The Constantia 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.
73° on Nov. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 73° in 2012.
Constantia’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 530 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mud Hill, about 800 ft, 11 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Clinton Group (shale), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 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 46×. 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: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 428 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 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.
A raindrop that lands in Constantia reaches Lake Ontario by way of Dakin Creek, the Oneida and the Oswego: about 55 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Oneida Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Constantia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Constantia has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 128 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Constantia normally reaches 49° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1994; the record low 12°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 from the Syracuse Area threaded record (Syracuse Hancock International Airport, 11 miles south-southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.