The Carlisle-Rockledge 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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3.40 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1953. The next wettest, 2.24 inches, fell in 1989.
Carlisle-Rockledge’s center stands about 1,090 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 640 ft to 1,230 ft, a difference of 590 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Aurora Mountain, about 1,400 ft, 4 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pottsville Formation (sandstone, conglomerate), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 23×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone, dolostone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 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 Carlisle-Rockledge reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Line Creek, Big Wills Creek, the Coosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 550 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lay Lake.
310 miles of the trip are on the Alabama.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Carlisle-Rockledge; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Carlisle-Rockledge has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. About 58 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Carlisle-Rockledge normally reaches 64° and falls to 41°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 24°, in 1953. The most rain on this date, 2.23 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1953 at Gadsden, 10 miles southeast, 520 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
