The Durham 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
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73° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1942. Next is 72° in 2020.
Durham’s center stands about 810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 1,850 ft, a difference of 1,240 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Black Dome, about 3,980 ft, 9 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Plattekill and Ashokan Formations (shale, sandstone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. 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: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, 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 Durham reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cornwallville Creek, Catskill Creek and the Hudson: about 140 river miles.
110 miles of the trip are on the Hudson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Durham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Durham has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 46 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Durham normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 66°, in 1964; the record low 8°, in 1971. The most rain on this date, 1.17 in, fell in 1955.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1942 at Alcove Dam, 13 miles east-northeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
