The Highland 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
74° on Nov. 11, 2024, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1978. Next is 72° in 1993.
Highland’s center stands about 560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 390 ft to 700 ft, a difference of 310 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Welsh Mountain, about 1,080 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Peters Creek Schist (mica-schist, quartzite), from the Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 29×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Paleozoic, 252 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian. About 2 mi of the line.
Muscovite-gneiss. Age: Precambrian. 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. 3 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 Highland reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Birch Run, Buck Run, West Branch Brandywine Creek, Brandywine Creek, the Christina and the Delaware: about 80 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Highland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Highland has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 18 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Highland normally reaches 54° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 1993; the record low 15°, in 2022. The most rain on this date, 0.92 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1978 at Octoraro Lake, 12 miles southwest, 300 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
