The Marion 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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6.00 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1950. The next wettest, 3.20 inches, fell in 1954.
Marion’s center stands about 370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 220 ft to 440 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Eutaw Formation (sand, clay), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 52×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand, clay. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 13 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Chalk, marl. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 0.3 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 Marion reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Rice Creek, the Cahaba, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 290 river miles.
200 miles of the trip are on the Alabama.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Marion; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Marion has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 55 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Marion normally reaches 69° and falls to 41°. The record high is 88°, in 1955; the record low 22°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.72 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1950 at Marion Junction 2 NE, 12 miles south-southeast, 150 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
