The Sparta 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
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
5° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 15° in 2017.
Sparta’s center stands about 1,310 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 580 ft to 2,040 ft, a difference of 1,460 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Frost Hill, about 2,320 ft, 14 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows West Hill and Gardeau Formations (shale, siltstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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. 3 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 Sparta reaches Lake Ontario by way of Canaseraga Creek and the Genesee: about 80 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
65 miles of the trip are on the Genesee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sparta; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sparta has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. About 29 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sparta normally reaches 50° and falls to 33°. The record high is 67°, in 1952; the record low 20°, in 2014. The most rain on this date, 1.29 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Dansville Municipal Airport, 4 miles south-southwest, 670 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
