The Westerly 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
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.
Westerly’s center stands barely above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 130 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. Open water lies within three miles. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Chapman Hill, about 570 ft, 12 miles north-northwest.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 38×. 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, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Permian, 269 to 283 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 596 to 606 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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.
Rain that falls on Westerly runs straight into the Atlantic Ocean.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Westerly; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Westerly 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 Westerly 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, 18 miles northeast, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
