The Hamilton 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.
75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1934. Next is 69° in 1956.
Hamilton’s center stands about 1,760 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,320 ft to 2,150 ft, a difference of 830 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Howard Hill, about 2,370 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 19×. 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, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.4 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 Hamilton reaches the Gulf of America by way of Allegheny Reservoir, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,160 river miles.
Lake on the way: Allegheny Reservoir.
970 miles of the trip are on the Ohio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hamilton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hamilton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Hamilton normally reaches 47° and falls to 28°. The record high is 67°, in 2010; the record low 3°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.37 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Bradford 4 SW Res 5, 11 miles northeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.