The Dawsonville 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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4.32 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1891. The next wettest, 4.29 inches, fell in 1968.
Dawsonville’s center stands about 1,370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,180 ft to 1,500 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Springer Mountain, about 3,790 ft, 15 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Mica Schist/ Gneiss (mica-schist, gneiss), 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 12×. 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, gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 13 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 0.4 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 Dawsonville reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Burt Creek, Shoal Creek, the Etowah, the Coosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 760 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lay Lake and Allatoona 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 Dawsonville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dawsonville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 56 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 Dawsonville normally reaches 62° and falls to 40°. The record high is 79°, in 1931; the record low 20°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1898.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 at Gainesville, 17 miles east-southeast, 200 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
