The Union 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.
77° on Nov. 13, 1949, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1931. Next is 77° in 2020.
Union’s center stands about 1,420 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,060 ft to 1,510 ft, a difference of 450 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Round Knob, about 1,640 ft, 7 miles east-southeast.
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 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Siltstone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 0.7 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 Union reaches the Gulf of America by way of French Creek, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,100 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 Union; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Union has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 62 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Union normally reaches 50° and falls to 32°. The record high is 70°, in 1989; the record low 13°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 1.22 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1931 at Jamestown 2 NW, 17 miles west-southwest, 400 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.