The Quantico 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.
4.05 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1906. The next wettest, 3.40 inches, fell in 2009.
Quantico’s center stands about 20 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 90 ft, a difference of 90 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quaternary Deposits Undivided (fine-detrital, coarse-detrital), from the Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
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, coarse-detrital. Age: Pleistocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 21 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 Quantico reaches Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Manumsco Creek, Rewastico Creek and the Nanticoke: about 18 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Quantico; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Quantico has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 48 inches of water.
On November 14 Quantico normally reaches 59° and falls to 38°. The record high is 77°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.40 in, fell in 1995.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1906 from the Salisbury Area threaded record (Salisbury-Wicomico Regional Airport, 13 miles east). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.