The Downingtown 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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78° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 77° in 1973.
Downingtown’s center stands about 250 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 240 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 390 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Welsh Mountain, about 1,080 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ledger Formation (dolostone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 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 30×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Muscovite-gneiss. Age: Precambrian. About 7 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 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.
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 Downingtown reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of East Branch Brandywine Creek, Brandywine Creek, the Christina and the Delaware: about 70 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Downingtown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Downingtown has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Downingtown normally reaches 56° and falls to 35°. The record high is 75°, in 1955; the record low 19°, in 1950. The most rain on this date, 2.56 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Phoenixville 1 E, 14 miles northeast, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
