The Oswego 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.
3.33 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1901. The next wettest, 2.85 inches, fell in 1979.
Oswego’s center stands about 160 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 140 ft to 200 ft, a difference of 60 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spring Hill, about 460 ft, 13 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Bear Bluff Formation (sand, limestone), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 57×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, limestone. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 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.
A raindrop that lands in Oswego reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cowpen Swamp, Rocky Bluff Swamp, Scape Ore Swamp and the Black River: about 140 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Oswego; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Oswego has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Oswego normally reaches 65° and falls to 40°. The record high is 83°, in 1989; the record low 22°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.65 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1901 at Sumter, 6 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.