The Gordonville 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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16° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1992. Next is 19° in 1996.
Gordonville’s center stands about 410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 490 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Welsh Mountain, about 1,080 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
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 14 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.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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 Gordonville reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Pequea Creek and the Susquehanna: about 60 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gordonville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gordonville has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 24° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Gordonville normally reaches 54° and falls to 37°. The record high is 70°, in 1993; the record low 25°, in 2004. The most rain on this date, 0.50 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1992 at New Holland 2 SE, 5 miles northeast, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
