The Rapids 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
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3° on Nov. 16, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 11° in 2019.
Rapids’s center stands about 590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 50 ft: nearly flat ground. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Hill, about 800 ft, 9 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Camillus, Syracuse, and Vernon Formations (shale), from the Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 41×. 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: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 434 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 388 to 410 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 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. 2 smaller units 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 Rapids reaches Lake Ontario by way of Tonawanda Creek and the Niagara: about 45 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 Rapids; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rapids has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. About 38 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rapids normally reaches 49° and falls to 34°. The record high is 70°, in 1994; the record low 14°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.50 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Lockport 2 SE, 4 miles north. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
