The Middleway 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.
81° on Nov. 15, 1973, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 80° in 1931.
Middleway’s center stands about 520 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 440 ft to 630 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Shockeys Knob, about 1,890 ft, 15 miles west-northwest.
The section below crosses 13 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 17×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Ordovician, 471 to 487 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. 7 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 Middleway reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Turkey Run, Opequon Creek and the Potomac: about 240 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Middleway; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Middleway has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 23° in January. About 39 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Middleway normally reaches 56° and falls to 35°. The record high is 77°, in 1989; the record low 13°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.41 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 from the Martinsburg Area threaded record (Martinsburg Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, 7 miles north). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.