The Thompson 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.
71° on Nov. 12, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1924. Next is 69° in 1956.
Thompson’s center stands about 1,670 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,400 ft to 2,120 ft, a difference of 720 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is North Knob, about 2,690 ft, 11 miles south-southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Catskill Formation (sandstone, siltstone, shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 12×. 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, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, mudstone. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 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 Thompson reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Starrucca Creek and the Susquehanna: about 380 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Aldred.
320 miles of the trip are on the Susquehanna.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Thompson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Thompson 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 Thompson 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, 9 miles south-southeast, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.