The Canaan 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
71° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is 69° in 1956.
Canaan’s center stands about 1,470 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 2,100 ft, a difference of 890 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Knob, about 2,690 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Poplar Gap and Packerton Members of Catskill Formation, undivided (conglomerate-sandstone, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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 9 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. 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.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. 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. 1 smaller unit 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 Canaan reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Van Auken Creek, the Lackawaxen and the Delaware: about 280 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Canaan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Canaan has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 69 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 51 inches of water.
On November 14 Canaan normally reaches 45° and falls to 27°. The record high is 64°, in 1964; the record low 5°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.30 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1924 at Pleasant Mount 1 W, 12 miles north-northwest, 330 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
