The Buffalo 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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10° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 15° in 2019.
Buffalo’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 470 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Jones Mountain, about 2,180 ft, 8 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Keyser and Tonoloway Formations, undivided (limestone), from the Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 0.9 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 Buffalo reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Mill Race, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 150 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
85 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Buffalo; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Buffalo has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 29 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Lewisburg, 5 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
