The Brilliant 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.
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3.02 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1923. The next wettest, 3.00 inches, fell in 2014.
Brilliant’s center stands about 630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 520 ft to 840 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Millstone Mountain, about 930 ft, 15 miles east-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Tuscaloosa Group; Coker Formation (sand, clay), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 48×. 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, siltstone, sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Brilliant reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Clifty Creek, the Little New, the Sipsey, the Tombigbee and the Mobile: about 450 river miles.
240 miles of the trip are on the Tombigbee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Brilliant; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Brilliant has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 64 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Brilliant normally reaches 64° and falls to 39°. The record high is 80°, in 1985; the record low 20°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.95 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1923 at Winfield 2 SW, 9 miles south-southwest, 110 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
