The Phoenix 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.
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73° on Nov. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 73° in 2012.
Phoenix’s center stands about 390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 350 ft to 470 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Quack Hill, about 840 ft, 13 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Clinton Group (shale), from the Silurian, 434 to 445 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 51×. 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 Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 428 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Dolostone, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 0.8 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 Phoenix reaches Lake Ontario by way of the Oswego: about 25 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Phoenix; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Phoenix has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 128 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Phoenix normally reaches 49° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1994; the record low 12°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 from the Syracuse Area threaded record (Syracuse Hancock International Airport, 13 miles southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
