The Fairfield 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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77° on Nov. 16, 1928, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 72° in 1902.
Fairfield’s center stands about 820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 480 ft to 1,420 ft, a difference of 940 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarcamp Mountain, about 2,150 ft, 15 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Brallier and Harrell Formations, undivided (siltstone, shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. 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. 5 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 Fairfield reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bennetts Run, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 170 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
85 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Fairfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairfield has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 20° in January. A normal year brings about 36 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Fairfield normally reaches 51° and falls to 34°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.53 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 from the Williamsport Area threaded record (Williamsport Regional Airport, 3 miles west-southwest, 300 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
