The Fairview 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.
72° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1958. Next is 71° in 2012.
Fairview’s center stands about 1,610 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 700 ft to 2,070 ft, a difference of 1,370 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Big Pine Hill, about 2,260 ft, 13 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Duncannon Member of Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Fairview reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bow Creek, Big Wapwallopen Creek and the Susquehanna: about 190 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 Fairview; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Fairview 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 Fairview 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, 9 miles east-southeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.