The Potsdam 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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68° on Nov. 11, 2022, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1934. Next is 65° in 2011.
Potsdam’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 370 ft to 560 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Whites Hill, about 1,460 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary, migmatite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Paragneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion 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. 1 smaller unit 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.
A raindrop that lands in Potsdam reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Raquette and the Saint Lawrence: about 40 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Potsdam; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Potsdam has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Colton 2 N, 6 miles south-southeast, 150 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
