The Galway 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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73° on Nov. 14, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1955. Next is 72° in 2020.
Galway’s center stands about 850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 570 ft to 1,110 ft, a difference of 540 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Miner Hill, about 1,730 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Beekmantown Group (dolostone, limestone), from the Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, migmatite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 497 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. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Galway reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Glowegee Creek, Kayaderosseras Creek, Fish Creek and the Hudson: about 220 river miles.
Lake on the way: Saratoga Lake.
180 miles of the trip are on the Hudson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Galway; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Galway has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 64 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Galway normally reaches 49° and falls to 31°. The record high is 73°, in 1989; the record low 11°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.04 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1955 at Saratoga Springs 4 SW, 11 miles east, 520 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
