The Tell 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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77° on Nov. 15, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1910. Next is 75° in 1993.
Tell’s center stands about 1,220 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 790 ft to 1,850 ft, a difference of 1,060 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Butler Knob, about 2,340 ft, 10 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Irish Valley Member of Catskill Formation (siltstone), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. 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 7 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Silurian, 422 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 384 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Silurian to Devonian, 359 to 445 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. 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. 7 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 Tell reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Tuscarora Creek, the Juniata and the Susquehanna: about 160 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Tell; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Tell has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 42 inches of water.
On November 14 Tell normally reaches 54° and falls to 34°. The record high is 73°, in 1989; the record low 14°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.88 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 at Shippensburg, 19 miles southeast, 540 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
