The Thomson 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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5.20 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1961. The next wettest, 5.00 inches, fell in 2009.
Thomson’s center stands about 530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 430 ft to 570 ft, a difference of 140 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granitic Gneiss undifferentiated, from the Precambrian to Paleozoic.
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 56×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 9 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 6 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Cretaceous to Tertiary, 2.6 to 145 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Precambrian to Paleozoic. About 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 Thomson reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Sills Branch, Germany Creek, the Little River and the Savannah: about 250 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Thomson; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Thomson has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Thomson normally reaches 68° and falls to 40°. The record high is 82°, in 2020; the record low 18°, in 1984. The most rain on this date, 2.60 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1961 at Appling 2 NW, 11 miles east-northeast, 130 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
