The West Kill 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
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Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
74° on Nov. 13, 2012, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1985. Next is 72° in 2002.
West Kill’s center stands about 1,490 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,340 ft to 3,390 ft, a difference of 2,050 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Slide Mountain, about 4,180 ft, 14 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Oneonta Formation (shale), from the Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 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 7×. 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: Middle Devonian to Late Devonian, 359 to 394 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 0.8 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 Kill reaches New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean by way of West Kill, Schoharie Creek, the Mohawk and the Hudson: about 280 river miles.
160 miles of the trip are on the Hudson.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of West Kill; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
West Kill has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 West Kill normally reaches 50° and falls to 28°. The record high is 65°, in 2011; the record low 8°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1985 at Lansing Manor, 17 miles north-northwest, 380 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
