The Charlestown 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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3.53 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.49 inches, fell in 1975.
Charlestown’s center stands about 30 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 210 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pine Hill, about 590 ft, 13 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Narragansett Pier Plutonic Suite - granite, from the Permian, 271 to 275 million years old.
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 44×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 596 to 606 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Permian, 271 to 275 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.3 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.
Rain that falls on Charlestown runs only a short way, about 2 miles, to the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Charlestown; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Charlestown has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 53 inches of water.
On November 14 Charlestown normally reaches 55° and falls to 34°. The record high is 71°, in 1993; the record low 12°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.73 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Kingston, 9 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
