The Butler 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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72° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1958. Next is 71° in 2012.
Butler’s center stands about 1,140 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 970 ft to 1,890 ft, a difference of 920 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wyoming Mountain, about 2,100 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mauch Chunk Formation (shale, siltstone, sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 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.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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. 4 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 Butler reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Nescopeck Creek and the Susquehanna: about 190 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
120 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Butler; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Butler has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Butler normally reaches 48° and falls to 30°. The record high is 65°, in 1964; the record low 10°, in 1997. The most rain on this date, 0.91 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1958 at Francis E Walter Dam, 14 miles east-northeast, 370 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
