The Norwich 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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71° on Nov. 11, 2002, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1884. Next is 69° in 1909.
Norwich’s center stands about 1,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 710 ft to 1,740 ft, a difference of 1,030 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Smarts Mountain, about 3,220 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Gile Mountain Formation - thick-bedded micaceous feldspathic quartzite member (mica-schist, quartzite), from the Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old.
The section below crosses 12 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.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, quartzite. Age: Early Devonian, 394 to 422 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metaandesite, metabasalt. Age: Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician, 445 to 471 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Slate, phyllite. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 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. 6 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 Norwich reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Bloody Brook and the Connecticut: about 230 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Norwich; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Norwich has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 13° in January. A normal year brings about 61 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 40 inches of water.
On November 14 Norwich normally reaches 48° and falls to 31°. The record high is 66°, in 1973; the record low 6°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.19 in, fell in 2007.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1884 at Hanover, 5 miles south-southeast, 520 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
