The Mendon 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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−5° on Nov. 16, 1933, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1916. Next is −4° in 1916.
Mendon’s center stands about 1,080 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 3,030 ft, a difference of 2,400 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Killington Peak, about 4,190 ft, 6 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite-quartz-plagioclase gneiss, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion 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 6×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.6 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Early Cambrian, 521 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Paragneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Paragneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, phyllite. Age: Middle Cambrian, 497 to 521 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 Mendon reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Tenney Brook, Otter Creek and the Richelieu: about 220 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Champlain.
90 miles of the trip are on Otter Creek.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mendon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mendon has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 8° in January. A normal year brings about 75 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Mendon normally reaches 47° and falls to 26°. The record high is 69°, in 1989; the record low 1°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.20 in, fell in 1937.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1916 at Rutland, 3 miles southwest, 460 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
