The Columbia 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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73° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1973. Next is 69° in 2012.
Columbia’s center stands about 1,640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,160 ft to 1,940 ft, a difference of 780 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Armenia Mountain, about 2,460 ft, 7 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone, shale), 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 14×. 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, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.5 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 Columbia reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of North Branch Sugar Creek, Sugar Creek and the Susquehanna: about 310 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
240 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Columbia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Columbia has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 15° in January. A normal year brings about 43 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 36 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1973 at Tioga Hammond Dam, 15 miles west-northwest, 410 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
