The West Elmira 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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3.17 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 2.15 inches, fell in 1926.
West Elmira’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 840 ft to 1,720 ft, a difference of 880 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Tower Hill, about 2,380 ft, 14 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Beers Hill, Dunn Hill, Millport, and Moreland Shales; Grimes Siltstone, 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 18×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. 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 1 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.1 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 West Elmira reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Chemung and the Susquehanna: about 320 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 West Elmira; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
West Elmira has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 42 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 38 inches of water.
On November 14 West Elmira normally reaches 49° and falls to 30°. The record high is 75°, in 1902; the record low 10°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 0.85 in, fell in 1929.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Elmira, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
