The Bethlehem 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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19° on Nov. 16, 1940, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1857. Next is 20° in 1916.
Bethlehem’s center stands about 880 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 760 ft to 980 ft, a difference of 220 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pool Mountain, about 1,140 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotitic Gneiss / Mica Schist/ Amphibolite (amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
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 46×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 10 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 9 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 1 mi of the line.
Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 1 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. 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 Bethlehem reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Marbury Creek, the Apalachee, the Oconee and the Altamaha: about 360 river miles.
190 miles of the trip are on the Oconee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bethlehem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bethlehem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bethlehem normally reaches 65° and falls to 42°. The record high is 84°, in 1931; the record low 23°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1857 from the Athens Area threaded record (Athens Ben Epps Airport, 22 miles east). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
