The Nittany 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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13° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 15° in 1986.
Nittany’s center stands about 940 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 780 ft to 2,070 ft, a difference of 1,290 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Winehead, about 2,380 ft, 5 miles east-southeast.
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 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 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 Nittany reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Fishing Creek, Bald Eagle Creek, the West Branch Susquehanna and the Susquehanna: about 220 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
85 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Nittany; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Nittany 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 Nittany 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, 11 miles north-northeast, 370 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
