The Lavonia 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.
5.20 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1908. The next wettest, 5.10 inches, fell in 1957.
Lavonia’s center stands about 860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 730 ft to 920 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Hornblende Gneiss/ Amphibolite (hornblende-gneiss, amphibolite), 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 61×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Schist, gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 5 mi of the line.
Hornblende-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Hornblende-gneiss, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 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 Lavonia reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Unawatti Creek, the Broad and the Savannah: about 320 river miles.
250 miles of the trip are on the Savannah.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Lavonia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Lavonia has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. About 52 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Lavonia normally reaches 63° and falls to 41°. The record high is 83°, in 1924; the record low 25°, in 1963. The most rain on this date, 1.08 in, fell in 1908.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1908 at Hartwell, 12 miles east-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.