The Bethel 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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80° on Nov. 16, 2001, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1945. Next is 77° in 1973.
Bethel’s center stands about 750 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 510 ft to 1,430 ft, a difference of 920 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Emmaville Mountain, about 2,280 ft, 8 miles north.
The section below crosses 20 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. 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, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 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. 14 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Bethel reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Little Tonoloway Creek, Tonoloway Creek and the Potomac: about 250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bethel; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bethel has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bethel normally reaches 55° and falls to 33°. The record high is 70°, in 1994; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.05 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1945 at Cacapon St Prk # 2, 19 miles south-southwest, 210 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
