The Watson 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.
76° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 74° in 1896.
Watson’s center stands about 1,730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,340 ft to 1,970 ft, a difference of 630 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bull Hill, about 2,030 ft, 11 miles east.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Siltstone, conglomerate. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone, shale. Age: Devonian to Carboniferous, 324 to 422 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Watson reaches the Gulf of America by way of East Hickory Creek, the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,120 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 Watson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Watson has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 81° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 72 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Watson normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 6°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.27 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Warren, 11 miles northeast, 520 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.