The East Hempfield 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
77° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 74° in 1989.
East Hempfield’s center stands about 360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 310 ft to 590 ft, a difference of 280 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Governor Dick Hill, about 1,190 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Vintage Formation (dolostone), from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 20×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 2 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 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 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 East Hempfield reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Little Conestoga Creek, the Conestoga and the Susquehanna: about 50 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of East Hempfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
East Hempfield has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 East Hempfield normally reaches 55° and falls to 34°. The record high is 74°, in 1989; the record low 14°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Lancaster 2 NE Filt Plant, 6 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
