The Howe 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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76° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1840. Next is 74° in 2009.
Howe’s center stands about 580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 1,230 ft, a difference of 870 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buffalo Mountain, about 1,370 ft, 4 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sherman Creek Member of Catskill Formation (siltstone, mudstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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. 6 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 Howe reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 100 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Howe; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Howe has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 28 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1840 at Carlisle Water Plant, 19 miles south-southwest, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
