The Conestoga 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
20° on Nov. 12, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 21° in 2023.
Conestoga’s center stands about 500 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 160 ft to 560 ft, a difference of 400 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chimney Rock, about 910 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 25×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Conestoga reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Pequea Creek and the Susquehanna: about 40 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Conestoga; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Conestoga has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Safe Harbor Dam, 2 miles west-southwest, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
