The Worcester 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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69° on Nov. 12, 2002, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1993. Next is 67° in 2006.
Worcester’s center stands about 750 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 1,800 ft, a difference of 1,120 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Hunger, about 3,520 ft, 5 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Moretown Formation - “pinstriped” granofels member (granofels, quartzite), from the Cambrian to Early Ordovician, 471 to 542 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 7×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 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.
Muscovite-schist, gneiss, quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian, 521 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Quartzite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 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. 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 Worcester reaches the St. Lawrence River by way of the North Branch Winooski, 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 Worcester; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Worcester 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, 12 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
