The Spafford 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.
Showers likely
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1897. Next is 72° in 1902.
Spafford’s center stands about 1,690 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,970 ft, a difference of 1,180 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Truxton Hill, about 2,090 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
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 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 388 to 394 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.
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 Spafford reaches Lake Ontario by way of the Lower Basin, Skaneateles Creek, the Seneca and the Oswego: about 80 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Skaneateles Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Spafford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Spafford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 109 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Spafford normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 72°, in 1902; the record low 8°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 1901.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1897 at Auburn, 17 miles west-northwest, 920 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
