The Nelson 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.
Showers likely
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Mostly sunny; warmer
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72° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 69° in 1956.
Nelson’s center stands about 1,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,310 ft to 1,890 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fellows Hill, about 2,070 ft, 14 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Skaneateles Formation (shale), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 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. 5 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.
Nelson straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the east side runs to Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to Lake Ontario.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Ontario by way of Chittenango Creek, the Oneida and the Oswego: about 100 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the east side reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Eaton Brook, the Chenango and the Susquehanna: about 430 river miles.
Lake on the way: Oneida Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nelson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Nelson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Nelson normally reaches 45° and falls to 29°. The record high is 64°, in 1989; the record low 4°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.09 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Morrisville 6 SW, 6 miles south-southeast, 240 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
