The South Manheim 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
75° on Nov. 16, 1993, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1978. Next is 75° in 2020.
South Manheim’s center stands about 790 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 480 ft to 1,600 ft, a difference of 1,120 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Dans Pulpit, about 1,660 ft, 12 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Trimmers Rock Formation (siltstone, shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. 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. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 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. 6 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 South Manheim reaches Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bear Creek, the Schuylkill and the Delaware: about 170 river miles.
110 miles of the trip are on the Schuylkill.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Manheim; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
South Manheim has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 South Manheim normally reaches 53° and falls to 33°. The record high is 70°, in 2022; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.50 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1978 at Blue Marsh Lake, 16 miles south-southeast, 440 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
