The Westford 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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74° on Nov. 11, 1948, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 73° in 1956.
Westford’s center stands about 1,560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,400 ft to 2,240 ft, a difference of 840 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pine Mountain, about 2,370 ft, 8 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Panther Mountain Formation (shale, siltstone, sandstone), from the Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 16×. 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, sandstone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 388 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 388 to 394 million years old. About 0.4 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 Westford reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Elk Creek, Schenevus Creek and the Susquehanna: about 460 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Westford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Westford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 73° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 86 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Westford normally reaches 40° and falls to 30°. The record high is 70°, in 1989; the record low 9°, in 1939. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1949.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Cooperstown, 8 miles northwest, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
