The Hopkinton 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.
−12° on Nov. 15, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1903. Next is −9° in 2019.
Hopkinton’s center stands about 1,410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,160 ft to 1,790 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Azure Mountain, about 2,490 ft, 8 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Charnockite, granitic and quartz syenite gneiss (charnockite, gneiss), from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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 16×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Charnockite, gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, migmatite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 0.5 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 Hopkinton reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Randle Meadow Brook, Stony Brook, the West Branch Saint Regis, the Saint Regis and the Saint Lawrence: about 60 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hopkinton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hopkinton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. About 37 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hopkinton normally reaches 42° and falls to 23°. The record high is 66°, in 1909; the record low −4°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.71 in, fell in 1959.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 from the Saranac Lake Area threaded record (Saranac Lake Adirondack Regional Airport, 25 miles east-southeast, 250 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.