The Hanksville 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.
−6° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1981. Next is 0° in 1986.
Hanksville’s center stands about 900 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 2,770 ft, a difference of 2,040 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ellen, about 4,060 ft, 7 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pinnacle Formation - undivided (quartz-feldspar-schist, phyllite, metagraywacke), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 15 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.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartz-feldspar-schist, phyllite, metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 9 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 Hanksville reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Huntington, the Winooski and the Richelieu: about 170 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Champlain.
80 miles of the trip are on the Richelieu.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hanksville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hanksville 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 Hanksville 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, 13 miles south, 440 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.