The Polk 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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19° on Nov. 11, 2017, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1934. Next is 19° in 2019.
Polk’s center stands about 1,000 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 1,170 ft, a difference of 490 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pimple Hill, about 2,220 ft, 7 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Walcksville Member of Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone, mudstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 14 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.
Conglomerate-sandstone, clastic. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, siltstone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, slate. 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. 8 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 Polk reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Dotters Creek, Pohopoco Creek, the Lehigh and the Delaware: about 210 river miles.
150 miles of the trip are on the Delaware.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Polk; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Polk has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 27 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 52 inches of water.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 at Lehighton 1 SSW, 12 miles southwest, 540 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
