The Massanutten 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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80° on Nov. 12, 1931, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 78° in 1924.
Massanutten’s center stands about 1,730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,090 ft to 2,880 ft, a difference of 1,790 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hightop, about 3,590 ft, 11 miles east-southeast.
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 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, conglomerate, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 2 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.
A raindrop that lands in Massanutten reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Quail Run, the South Fork Shenandoah, the Shenandoah and the Potomac: about 320 river miles.
180 miles of the trip are on the Potomac.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Massanutten; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Massanutten has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. A normal year brings about 19 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Massanutten normally reaches 56° and falls to 33°. The record high is 78°, in 1924; the record low 9°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1908.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Dale Enterprise, 11 miles west-northwest, 370 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
