The Somerset 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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7° on Nov. 15, 1986, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1942. Next is 8° in 1957.
Somerset’s center stands about 1,080 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 860 ft to 1,120 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country.
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 48×. 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 19 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 6 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 Somerset reaches the Gulf of America by way of Somerset Creek, Center Branch Rush Creek, Rush Creek, the Hocking, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 1,850 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 Somerset; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Somerset has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 20 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Somerset normally reaches 53° and falls to 30°. The record high is 72°, in 2010; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.36 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1942 at New Lexington 2 NW, 7 miles southeast, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
