Massachusetts Geography & Climate

Massachusetts is compact — roughly 180 miles across — and changes character sharply along that width.

The east is coastal lowland, heavily built up around Boston and its harbour, with a rocky North Shore and sandy beaches running south.

Cape Cod is a glacial deposit rather than bedrock: a hooked arm of sand left by the last ice sheet, still being reshaped by the Atlantic, with the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket as further fragments of the same moraine. It is the reason the coast here is sand where Maine's is granite.

Inland the land rises through the broad river valley down the state's middle — its agricultural belt — to the Berkshires in the far west, the southern end of the same Appalachian chain that runs north into Vermont.

The climate is humid continental, with real winters and warm summers, moderated near the coast and harsher in the western hills.

Nor'easters are the defining winter weather: coastal storms that can drop heavy snow, flood the shore and shut transport for a day or two. They are routine rather than exceptional, and the state is well equipped for them.

Summers are warm and humid inland; the Cape and islands run cooler, with sea fog common in early summer. The ocean stays cold into July and is at its most swimmable in late August and September.

Autumn is the most reliable season — clear and dry, with foliage moving from the Berkshires eastward through October.