The Middle Smithfield 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.
3.42 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1910. The next wettest, 2.83 inches, fell in 1970.
Middle Smithfield’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 510 ft to 1,180 ft, a difference of 670 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Turkey Knoll, about 2,170 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
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 11×. 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, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Graywacke, siltstone. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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. 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 Middle Smithfield reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bush Kill and the Delaware: about 210 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Middle Smithfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Middle Smithfield has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 42 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 54 inches of water.
On November 14 Middle Smithfield normally reaches 52° and falls to 32°. The record high is 72°, in 1931; the record low 11°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.83 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at East Stroudsburg, 8 miles southwest, 520 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.