The Gowanda 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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18° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 19° in 2019.
Gowanda’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 1,330 ft, a difference of 600 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Carroll Hill, about 2,110 ft, 13 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Machias Formation (shale, siltstone, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 18 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. 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 Gowanda reaches Lake Erie by way of Cattaraugus Creek: about 18 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gowanda; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gowanda has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Gowanda normally reaches 50° and falls to 35°. The record high is 65°, in 2011; the record low 20°, in 2004. The most rain on this date, 1.11 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Dunkirk Chautauqua County Airport, 18 miles west, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
