The Somerset 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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75° on Nov. 11, 2002, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1943. Next is 75° in 2020.
Somerset’s center stands about 2,120 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,990 ft to 2,470 ft, a difference of 480 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Knob, about 2,960 ft, 10 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Allegheny Formation (sandstone), 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 21×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale, clastic. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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.
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 Somerset reaches the Gulf of America by way of East Branch Coxes Creek, Coxes Creek, the Casselman, the Youghiogheny, the Monongahela, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,070 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 Somerset; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Somerset has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Somerset normally reaches 51° and falls to 32°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 8°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.77 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1943 at Donegal 2 NW, 19 miles west-northwest, 320 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
