The Snyder 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.
75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1982. Next is 72° in 1994.
Snyder’s center stands about 1,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 910 ft to 2,500 ft, a difference of 1,590 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Lost Mountain, about 2,650 ft, 6 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Lock Haven Formation (sandstone, siltstone, mudstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 19 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. 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. 13 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 Snyder reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Decker Run, Bald Eagle Creek, the Little Juniata, the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 210 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
100 miles of the trip are on the Juniata.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Snyder; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Snyder has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 50 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 41 inches of water.
On November 14 Snyder normally reaches 50° and falls to 30°. The record high is 65°, in 2010; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.61 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1982 at Prince Gallitzin State Park, 16 miles west-southwest, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.