The Burnside 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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75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1982. Next is 68° in 2012.
Burnside’s center stands about 1,880 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 770 ft to 2,150 ft, a difference of 1,380 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bear Knob, about 2,370 ft, 14 miles south.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. 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. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 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 Burnside reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Spruce Run, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 250 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
120 miles of the trip are on the West Branch Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Burnside; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Burnside has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1982 at Alvin R Bush Dam, 15 miles north, 950 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
