The Solvay 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. 15, 1956, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1902. Next is 73° in 2012.
Solvay’s center stands about 570 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 830 ft, a difference of 470 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dutch Hill, about 1,870 ft, 15 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cobleskill Limestone (shale, limestone, dolostone), from the Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 388 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 428 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 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. 4 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 Solvay reaches Lake Ontario by way of Geddes Brook, Ninemile Creek, the Seneca and the Oswego: about 35 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Onondaga Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Solvay; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Solvay has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 128 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Solvay normally reaches 49° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1994; the record low 12°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1902 from the Syracuse Area threaded record (Syracuse Hancock International Airport, 7 miles northeast, 160 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
