The Smoketown 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; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
77° on Nov. 15, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 74° in 1989.
Smoketown’s center stands about 360 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 310 ft to 440 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Welsh Mountain, about 1,080 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conestoga Formation (limestone), from the Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 27×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite, schist. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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.
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 Smoketown reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mill Creek, the Conestoga and the Susquehanna: about 55 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Smoketown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Smoketown has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Smoketown normally reaches 55° and falls to 34°. The record high is 74°, in 1989; the record low 14°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Lancaster 2 NE Filt Plant, 4 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
