The Hamden 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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9° on Nov. 14, 1920, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1914. Next is 9° in 1933.
Hamden’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 960 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Peck Hill, about 1,100 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Allegheny and Pottsville Groups, Undivided (shale, siltstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million 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 Hamden reaches the Gulf of America by way of Little Raccoon Creek, Raccoon Creek, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,740 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hamden; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hamden has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Hamden normally reaches 52° and falls to 33°. The record high is 75°, in 1931; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.24 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 at Jackson 3 NW, 11 miles west-southwest, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
