The Sidney 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.
Sidney’s center stands about 1,000 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 970 ft to 1,860 ft, a difference of 890 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Loomis Mountain, about 2,270 ft, 12 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Oneonta Formation (shale), from the Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. 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: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million 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.
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 Sidney reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Susquehanna: about 400 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sidney; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sidney 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 Sidney 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, 15 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
