The Virginia 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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3° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1895. Next is 7° in 1986.
Virginia’s center stands about 620 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 560 ft to 640 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carbondale Formation (shale, sandstone, coal), from the Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 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.
Shale, sandstone, coal. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Late Pennsylvanian, 304 to 315 million years old. About 19 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Mississippian to Middle Mississippian, 331 to 359 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Middle Pennsylvanian, 307 to 324 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Middle Mississippian, 331 to 347 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 Virginia reaches the Gulf of America by way of Clear Creek, Indian Creek, the Illinois and the Mississippi: about 1,290 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Virginia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Virginia has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. A normal year brings about 16 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 39 inches of water.
On November 14 Virginia normally reaches 54° and falls to 32°. The record high is 79°, in 1989; the record low 7°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.58 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1895 at Jacksonville 2 E, 15 miles south. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
