The Sandy 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.
68° on Nov. 13, 1989, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1962. Next is 68° in 1994.
Sandy’s center stands about 1,590 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,390 ft to 1,720 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Boone Mountain, about 2,410 ft, 12 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glenshaw Formation (shale), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 22×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 0.8 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 Sandy reaches the Gulf of America by way of Pentz Run, Sandy Lick Creek, Redbank Creek, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,090 river miles.
970 miles of the trip are on the Ohio.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sandy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sandy has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. About 42 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sandy normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 68°, in 1994; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.05 in, fell in 2011.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1962 at Dubois Regional Airport, 8 miles northwest, 220 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.