The Joppa 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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22° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1995. Next is 25° in 1997.
Joppa’s center stands about 990 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 890 ft to 1,100 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Meeks Mountain, about 1,300 ft, 15 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pottsville Formation (lower part) (sandstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 30×. 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. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Ordovician, 445 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Carboniferous, 324 to 359 million years old. About 0.5 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 Joppa reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Joppa Creek, the Mulberry Fork, the Black Warrior, the Tombigbee and the Mobile: about 510 river miles.
170 miles of the trip are on the Tombigbee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Joppa; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Joppa has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 57 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Joppa normally reaches 62° and falls to 43°. The record high is 74°, in 2011; the record low 22°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.27 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1995 at Guntersville No.2, 13 miles east, 400 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
