The Brighton 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.
Chance of showers
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
69° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1990. Next is 68° in 2002.
Brighton’s center stands about 1,200 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,160 ft to 2,280 ft, a difference of 1,120 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Mountain, about 3,440 ft, 10 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Nulhegan pluton - western zone (quartz-monzodiorite), from the Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 376 to 404 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 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.
Quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Granite, pegmatite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzodiorite. Age: Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 376 to 404 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartz-monzodiorite. Age: Early Devonian to Late Devonian, 376 to 404 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.
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.
Brighton straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the southeast side runs to Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to the St. Lawrence River.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Pherrins, the Clyde, the Magog and the Saint-François: about 200 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic. One that lands on the southeast side reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Nulhegan and the Connecticut: about 360 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Memphremagog.
120 miles of the trip are on the Saint-François.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brighton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brighton has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 76° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. A normal year brings about 115 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 45 inches of water.
On November 14 Brighton normally reaches 42° and falls to 27°. The record high is 60°, in 2010; the record low −3°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.31 in, fell in 2021.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1990 at Island Pond, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
