The Middlesex 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.
Middlesex’s center stands about 430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 400 ft to 530 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flat Rock, about 1,990 ft, 15 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Chambersburg Formation (limestone, shale), from the Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 13×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 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. 9 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 Middlesex reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Conodoguinet Creek and the Susquehanna: about 110 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Middlesex; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Middlesex 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, 3 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
