The Laurel 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.
Mostly sunny
Sunny; warmer
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
5.75 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1927. The next wettest, 4.60 inches, fell in 2020.
Laurel’s center stands about 16 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 30 ft, a difference of 30 ft: nearly flat ground. Open water lies within three miles.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Shelly sediments of Plio-Pleistocene age (sand, limestone), from the Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. 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, limestone. Age: Late Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 3.6 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Sand, clay, dolostone. Age: Middle Miocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 16 million years old. About 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.
Rain that falls on Laurel runs straight into the Gulf of America.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Laurel; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Laurel has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 52° in January. About 51 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Laurel normally reaches 80° and falls to 60°. The record high is 90°, in 1993; the record low 40°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 3.36 in, fell in 1969.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1927 at Venice, 2 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
