The Braintree 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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−6° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1981. Next is 0° in 1986.
Braintree’s center stands about 1,350 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 1,960 ft, a difference of 1,280 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bread Loaf Mountain, about 3,800 ft, 12 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Moretown Formation - “pinstriped” granofels member (granofels, quartzite), from the Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Phyllite, muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartzite, phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 404 to 414 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 6 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 Braintree reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Third Branch White, the White River and the Connecticut: about 260 river miles.
220 miles of the trip are on the Connecticut.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Braintree; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Braintree has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 6° in January. A normal year brings about 112 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 49 inches of water.
On November 14 Braintree normally reaches 44° and falls to 25°. The record high is 66°, in 2005; the record low −5°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.95 in, fell in 1984.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1981 at South Lincoln, 15 miles west-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
