The Buford 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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23° on Nov. 13, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1996. Next is 24° in 2013.
Buford’s center stands about 1,170 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,010 ft to 1,260 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sawnee Mountain, about 1,940 ft, 12 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metagraywacke/ Mica Schist (metagraywacke, mica-schist), 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 34×. 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 6 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 1 mi of the line.
Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.6 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 Buford reaches the Gulf of America by way of Suwanee Creek, the Chattahoochee and the Apalachicola: about 460 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Walter F George Reservoir, West Point Lake and Bartletts Ferry Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Buford; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Buford has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1996 at Gainesville Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport, 14 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
