The Preston 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.
Mostly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
71° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is 69° in 1956.
Preston’s center stands about 2,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,500 ft to 2,160 ft, a difference of 660 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Knob, about 2,690 ft, 12 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone, shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 14×. 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, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Preston reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Equinunk Creek and the Delaware: about 310 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Preston; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Preston has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 12° in January. A normal year brings about 69 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 51 inches of water.
On November 14 Preston normally reaches 45° and falls to 27°. The record high is 64°, in 1964; the record low 5°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.30 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1924 at Pleasant Mount 1 W, 8 miles south-southwest, 330 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
