The Hancock 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
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
69° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1959. Next is 68° in 1964.
Hancock’s center stands about 920 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 890 ft to 1,870 ft, a difference of 980 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ararat, about 2,640 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Walton Formation (shale, sandstone, conglomerate), 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 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.4 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 Hancock reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Fish Creek, the East Branch Delaware and the Delaware: about 310 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hancock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hancock has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hancock normally reaches 50° and falls to 27°. The record high is 68°, in 1964; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.97 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1959 at Downsville Dam, 18 miles east-northeast, 280 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
