The Morrisville 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. 12, 2002, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1993. Next is 67° in 2006.
Morrisville’s center stands about 680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 540 ft to 1,590 ft, a difference of 1,050 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is The Chin, about 4,350 ft, 11 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Ottauquechee Formation - carbonaceous phyllite member, from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 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.
Granofels, quartzite. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Phyllite. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 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. 4 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 Morrisville reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Lamoille 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 Morrisville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Morrisville has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 77° in July; winter nights fall to about 3° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1993 at Morrisville Stowe State Airport, 2 miles south-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
