The Nelson 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
4.23 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1937. The next wettest, 3.12 inches, fell in 2018.
Nelson’s center stands about 1,300 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 980 ft to 1,440 ft, a difference of 460 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Burnt Mountain, about 3,300 ft, 11 miles north.
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 9×. 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 8 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 4 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, metasiltstone. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 3 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, metasiltstone, metaconglomerate. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist, amphibolite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 2 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 Nelson reaches Mobile Bay and the Gulf of America by way of Sharp Mountain Creek, the Etowah, the Coosa, the Alabama and the Mobile: about 740 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 Nelson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Nelson has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 59 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 Nelson normally reaches 59° and falls to 40°. The record high is 75°, in 1954; the record low 16°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.59 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1937 at Jasper 1 NNW, 8 miles north-northwest, 160 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
