The Penton 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
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Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
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5.52 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1944. The next wettest, 3.78 inches, fell in 1983.
Penton’s center stands about 810 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 680 ft to 860 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Buck Mountain, about 1,040 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Dadeville Complex; Rock Mills Granite Gneiss (biotite-gneiss), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 7 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 5 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 5 mi of the line.
Amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Muscovite-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 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 Penton reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Sandy Creek, Chikasanoxee Creek, the Tallapoosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 480 river miles.
310 miles of the trip are on the Alabama.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Penton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Penton has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 56 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Penton normally reaches 66° and falls to 38°. The record high is 81°, in 1989; the record low 19°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 2.20 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1944 at Lafayette 2 W, 7 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
