The New York 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
80° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1869. Next is 77° in 1973.
New York’s center stands about 110 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 260 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Stony Hill, about 650 ft, 14 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Manhattan Formation, undivided (pelitic-schist, gneiss, amphibolite), from the Early Cambrian to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Pelitic-schist, gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Early Cambrian to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Plutonic. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Arkose. Age: Late Jurassic, 145 to 164 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone, siltstone-mudstone. Age: Early Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 202 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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.
Rain that falls on New York runs straight into New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of New York; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
New York has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 New York normally reaches 54° and falls to 42°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 2.23 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1869 from the New York-Central Park Area threaded record (World Trade Center, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
