The Catawissa 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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74° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1926. Next is 72° in 1973.
Catawissa’s center stands about 540 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 440 ft to 1,760 ft, a difference of 1,320 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Catawissa Mountain, about 1,960 ft, 10 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Buddys Run Member of Catskill Formation (siltstone, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 7 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 Catawissa reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Catawissa Creek and the Susquehanna: about 150 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
110 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Catawissa; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Catawissa 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.
On November 14 Catawissa normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 70°, in 1964; the record low 18°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.97 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1926 at Sunbury, 18 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
