The Miller 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.
76° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1840. Next is 74° in 2009.
Miller’s center stands about 810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 360 ft to 1,000 ft, a difference of 640 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buffalo Mountain, about 1,370 ft, 7 miles north-northeast.
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 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.
Siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. 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 Miller reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bailey Run, the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 95 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Miller; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Miller 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, 17 miles south-southwest, 380 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.