The Otselic 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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72° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 69° in 1956.
Otselic’s center stands about 1,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,320 ft to 1,960 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Randall Hill, about 2,070 ft, 10 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Moscow Formation (shale), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million 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 21×. 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: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.6 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 Otselic reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Otselic, the Tioughnioga, the Chenango and the Susquehanna: about 400 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
290 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Otselic; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Otselic 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 Otselic 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, 8 miles north, 330 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
