The Forkston 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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67° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1991. Next is 64° in 2009.
Forkston’s center stands about 1,850 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,030 ft to 2,310 ft, a difference of 1,280 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Mountain, about 2,480 ft, 9 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Huntley Mountain Formation (sandstone, siltstone), from the Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old.
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 11×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 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.
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 Forkston reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mehoopany Creek and the Susquehanna: about 250 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
190 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Forkston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Forkston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 14° in January. A normal year brings about 70 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 53 inches of water.
On November 14 Forkston normally reaches 45° and falls to 29°. The record high is 58°, in 2010; the record low 12°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1991 at Laporte, 17 miles west, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
