The Roxbury 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.
0° on Nov. 17, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1948. Next is 4° in 1967.
Roxbury’s center stands about 1,030 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 900 ft to 2,540 ft, a difference of 1,640 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Ellen, about 4,060 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
The section below crosses 14 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.
Phyllite, limestone. Age: Silurian to Early Devonian, 394 to 425 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Phyllite, muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartzite, phyllite, mica-schist. Age: Early Devonian, 404 to 414 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, phyllite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granofels, quartzite. Age: Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 8 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.
Roxbury straddles the St. Lawrence Divide. Rain on the east side runs to the St. Lawrence River; most of the rest goes to Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Third Branch White, the White River and the Connecticut: about 270 river miles. One that lands on the east side reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of Bull Run, the Dog, the Winooski and the Richelieu: about 190 river miles. The St. Lawrence carries it on to the Atlantic.
220 miles of the trip are on the Connecticut.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Roxbury; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Roxbury 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 Roxbury 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, 11 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.