The Buchanan 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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4.84 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1904. The next wettest, 4.00 inches, fell in 2009.
Buchanan’s center stands about 1,260 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,070 ft to 1,400 ft, a difference of 330 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Reeds Mountain, about 1,560 ft, 8 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Phyllite and Quartzite (phyllite, quartzite), from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 31×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 10 mi of the line.
Phyllite, quartzite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 8 mi of the line.
Slate. Age: Middle Ordovician, 459 to 471 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Hornblende-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Buchanan reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Cochran Creek, the Tallapoosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 600 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 Buchanan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Buchanan has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 54 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Buchanan normally reaches 64° and falls to 39°. The record high is 80°, in 1955; the record low 20°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.71 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1904 at Carrollton, 15 miles south-southeast, 260 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
