The Sterling 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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Partly cloudy
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3.00 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1895. The next wettest, 2.38 inches, fell in 2002.
Sterling’s center stands about 19 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 70 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pamlico shoreline complex - marsh and lagoonal facies (fine-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 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.
Fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Holocene, less than 12,000 years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Fine-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 0.7 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 Sterling reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Cowpen Creek, the Turtle and the Brunswick: about 17 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Sterling; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Sterling has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 44° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Sterling normally reaches 69° and falls to 53°. The record high is 85°, in 1895; the record low 32°, in 1975. The most rain on this date, 1.18 in, fell in 1954.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Brunswick, 8 miles south-southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
