The Portal 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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4.00 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1925. The next wettest, 2.20 inches, fell in 1997.
Portal’s center stands about 280 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 220 ft to 330 ft, a difference of 110 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Neogene undifferentiated (sandstone, claystone), from the Tertiary Neogene, 2.6 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, claystone. Age: Tertiary Neogene, 2.6 to 23 million years old. About 23 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Portal reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mill Creek and the Ogeechee: about 110 river miles.
80 miles of the trip are on the Ogeechee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Portal; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Portal has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 37° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Portal normally reaches 70° and falls to 45°. The record high is 85°, in 1958; the record low 27°, in 1977. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1925 at Brooklet 1 W, 19 miles southeast, 100 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
