The Cave Spring 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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4.26 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1896. The next wettest, 3.35 inches, fell in 1995.
Cave Spring’s center stands about 680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 620 ft to 1,030 ft, a difference of 410 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Flagpole Mountain, about 1,970 ft, 7 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Conasauga Group; Upper unit; Dolostone member, from the Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian to Cambrian, 487 to 521 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Cambrian, 487 to 542 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. 2 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 Cave Spring reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Little Cedar Creek, Big Cedar Creek, the Coosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 620 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lay Lake.
310 miles of the trip are on the Alabama.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cave Spring; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cave Spring has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 53 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Cave Spring normally reaches 64° and falls to 39°. The record high is 81°, in 1955; the record low 23°, in 1968. The most rain on this date, 1.89 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1896 at Cedartown, 7 miles east-southeast, 100 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
