The Hartford 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
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6° on Nov. 12, 1976, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 7° in 1972.
Hartford’s center stands about 390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 1,290 ft, a difference of 960 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Croydon Peak, about 2,740 ft, 14 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ammonoosuc Volcanics of Billings (1935) - metamorphosed andesitic and basaltic tuff, crystal tuff, and tuff breccia (metaandesite, metabasalt), from the Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old.
The section below crosses 17 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 11×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granite, aplite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Orthogneiss. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 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. 11 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 Hartford reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the White River and the Connecticut: about 220 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Hartford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Hartford has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 9° in January. About 38 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Hartford normally reaches 47° and falls to 28°. The record high is 66°, in 1973; the record low 9°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.11 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Lebanon Municipal Airport, 3 miles southeast, 160 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
