The Thurston 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.
Chance of showers
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Partly cloudy
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9° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1909. Next is 14° in 1996.
Thurston’s center stands about 1,280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,070 ft to 1,790 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Marsh Hill, about 2,310 ft, 13 miles west-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Nunda Formation, West Hill Formation (sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 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.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 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 Thurston reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Michigan Creek, the Cohocton, the Chemung and the Susquehanna: about 350 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
250 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Thurston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Thurston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 53 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Thurston normally reaches 46° and falls to 27°. The record high is 65°, in 1994; the record low 9°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.87 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1909 at Corning, 12 miles east-southeast, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
