Latitude/Longitude Conversion:

It is common in the waterfall/hiking community to use GPS units with latitude and longitude readings.  These readings are typically expressed in a variety of ways.  The most common of these is either degrees-minutes-seconds (DMS) or decimal-degrees) DD.

It is important to note that in our region, all locations are north of the equator.  The latitude readings are between roughly 42° 45' and 45° 00' North.  Likewise, all longitude measurements are between 73° 15' and 76° 22', West of the Prime Meridian.  Worldwide, US longitude readings are sometimes expressed as negative values since we are west of the Prime Meridian.  It is equally correct to express these values as positive numbers with the notation of W, for west of the Prime Meridian.

The Board on Geographic Names which monitors the official naming of all things geographic in the United States uses DMS readings.   Mainly because of this, we also utilize that standard on this website, with one small difference.  Whereas the BGN expresses their readings as ddmmss N, ddmmss W, we use the nominclature N dd° mm' ss", W dd° mm' ss".

Also useful to note is that some Internet mapping applications, such as googlemaps.com and bingmaps.com, use DD notation with the longitude expressed as a negative.  Although different, these are all acceptable and correct methods.

For the convenience of our readers, we are providing links to handy conversion tools.

To convert from degrees-minutes-seconds to decimal-degrees, click here.  Please note that the longitude degree reading must be preceeded by a negative sign "-".

To convert from decimal-degrees to degrees-minutes-seconds, click here.  The longitude degree reading must also be preceeded by a negative sign "-".