The Preston 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. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1906. Next is 72° in 1909.
Preston’s center stands about 1,450 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,300 ft to 1,880 ft, a difference of 580 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cole Hill, about 2,020 ft, 9 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Genesee Group (shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 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 Preston reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Fly Meadow Creek, the Chenango and the Susquehanna: about 380 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 Preston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Preston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Preston normally reaches 48° and falls to 28°. The record high is 68°, in 1989; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.52 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 at Norwich, 5 miles east-southeast, 460 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
