The Winthrop 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.
75° on Nov. 12, 2012, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 70° in 1982.
Winthrop’s center stands about 330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 270 ft to 430 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Whites Hill, about 1,460 ft, 14 miles south.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Theresa Formation (dolostone), from the Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 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 20×. 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: Cambrian, 487 to 497 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 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 Winthrop reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Bell Brook, the Saint Regis, the Raquette and the Saint Lawrence: about 25 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Winthrop; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Winthrop has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. About 34 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Winthrop normally reaches 45° and falls to 28°. The record high is 69°, in 1959; the record low 8°, in 1971. The most rain on this date, 1.12 in, fell in 1975.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Massena International Airport, 10 miles north-northwest, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.