The Northfield 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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0° on Nov. 17, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 4° in 1967.
Northfield’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 670 ft to 2,140 ft, a difference of 1,470 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ellen, about 4,060 ft, 14 miles west.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cram Hill Formation - undivided (phyllite), from the Early Ordovician to Middle Ordovician, 459 to 487 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 8×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Phyllite, muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granofels, quartzite. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 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 Northfield reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the Dog, the Winooski and the Richelieu: about 190 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 Northfield; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Northfield has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 7° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Northfield normally reaches 44° and falls to 27°. The record high is 65°, in 2011; the record low 5°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 1.74 in, fell in 2009.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Montpelier - Edward F. Knapp State Airport, 6 miles northeast, 320 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
