The Lewistown 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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12° on Nov. 13, 1981, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1938. Next is 16° in 1986.
Lewistown’s center stands about 480 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 450 ft to 1,610 ft, a difference of 1,160 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Thickhead Mountain, about 2,420 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
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 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. 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. 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 Lewistown reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Kishacoquillas Creek, the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 140 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lewistown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lewistown has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 26 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Lewistown normally reaches 53° and falls to 33°. The record high is 75°, in 1989; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.72 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1938 at Lewistown, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
