The Dorrance 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.
Dorrance’s center stands about 1,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 890 ft to 1,650 ft, a difference of 760 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wyoming Mountain, about 2,100 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
The section below crosses 5 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.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, 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.
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 Dorrance reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Big Wapwallopen Creek and the Susquehanna: about 180 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
130 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dorrance; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dorrance 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 Dorrance 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, 15 miles east, 380 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
