The South Canaan 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.
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
71° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is 69° in 1956.
South Canaan’s center stands about 1,430 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,210 ft to 1,880 ft, a difference of 670 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is High Knob, about 2,300 ft, 6 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Poplar Gap and Packerton Members of Catskill Formation, undivided (conglomerate-sandstone, sandstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 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.
Conglomerate-sandstone, sandstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 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 South Canaan reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Middle Creek, the Lackawaxen and the Delaware: about 280 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Canaan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Canaan 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 South Canaan 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, 16 miles north, 370 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
