The Portage 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
79° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 78° in 1896.
Portage’s center stands about 1,290 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,930 ft, a difference of 1,140 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Hill, about 2,090 ft, 8 miles east-southeast.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. 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, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million 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 Portage reaches Lake Ontario by way of Keshequa Creek, Canaseraga Creek and the Genesee: about 85 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
65 miles of the trip are on the Genesee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Portage; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Portage has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. About 33 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Portage normally reaches 49° and falls to 32°. The record high is 73°, in 2011; the record low 15°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.67 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Mount Morris 2 W, 13 miles north-northeast, 410 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
