The Rome 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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75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 69° in 1948.
Rome’s center stands about 460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 410 ft to 580 ft, a difference of 170 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bowen Hill, about 1,840 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Utica Shale (black-shale), from the Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 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 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.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 1 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.
Rome straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the east side runs to New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to Lake Ontario.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Lake Ontario by way of Wood Creek, the Oneida and the Oswego: about 80 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. One that lands on the east side reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Mohawk and the Hudson: about 280 river miles.
Lake on the way: Oneida Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rome; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rome has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 10° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Trenton Falls, 16 miles east-northeast, 340 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
