The Ortley 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy; cooler
Showers likely
70° on Nov. 16, 2001, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1956. Next is 67° in 1999.
Ortley’s center stands about 1,840 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,810 ft to 1,950 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pierre Shale (shale, bentonite), from the Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 33×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, bentonite. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 21 mi of the line.
Chalk, marlstone, shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 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.
Ortley has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in January. A normal year brings about 59 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 26 inches of water.
On November 14 Ortley normally reaches 40° and falls to 21°. The record high is 66°, in 1990; the record low −15°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.38 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1956 at Summit 1 W, 7 miles east-southeast, 120 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
