The Madisonburg 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.
13° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 15° in 1986.
Madisonburg’s center stands about 1,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,180 ft to 2,240 ft, a difference of 1,060 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Winehead, about 2,380 ft, 4 miles northeast.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. 5 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 Madisonburg reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Elk Creek, Penns Creek and the Susquehanna: about 180 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
75 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Madisonburg; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Madisonburg has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 30 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Madisonburg normally reaches 51° and falls to 31°. The record high is 64°, in 2011; the record low 20°, in 2004. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Lock Haven Sewage Plant, 15 miles north-northeast, 730 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.