The University at Buffalo 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.
8° on Nov. 15, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1871. Next is 9° in 1967.
University at Buffalo’s center stands about 590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 570 ft to 690 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Hill, about 800 ft, 11 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Camillus, Syracuse, and Vernon Formations (shale), from the Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 388 to 410 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 388 to 394 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 0.6 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 University at Buffalo reaches Lake Ontario by way of Ellicott Creek and the Niagara: about 35 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of University at Buffalo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
University at Buffalo has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 95 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 41 inches of water.
On November 14 University at Buffalo normally reaches 48° and falls to 35°. The record high is 69°, in 1994; the record low 15°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.93 in, fell in 1871.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1871 from the Buffalo Area threaded record (Buffalo Niagara International Airpor, 5 miles south-southeast, 120 ft higher). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.