The Williamstown 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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3.43 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 1.67 inches, fell in 1965.
Williamstown’s center stands about 610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 550 ft to 940 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Finn Hill, about 1,450 ft, 14 miles east.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Oswego Sandstone, from the Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 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 19×. 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 Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician to Silurian, 434 to 459 million years old. About 0.7 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 Williamstown reaches Lake Ontario by way of Indian Camp Brook, West Branch Fish Creek, Fish Creek, the Oneida and the Oswego: about 110 river miles. From the lake it goes down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Oneida Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Williamstown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Williamstown has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 11° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Williamstown normally reaches 46° and falls to 30°. The record high is 65°, in 1959; the record low 20°, in 2023. The most rain on this date, 1.20 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Pulaski, 15 miles northwest, 210 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
