The Salisbury 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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3.57 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1946. The next wettest, 3.24 inches, fell in 1985.
Salisbury’s center stands about 740 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 750 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cherokee Group - Cabaniss Subgroup, Krebs Subgroup (shale, sandstone, siltstone), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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, siltstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Limestone, shale. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 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 Salisbury reaches the Gulf of America by way of Puzzle Creek, the Chariton, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 1,420 river miles.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Salisbury; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Salisbury has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 18° in January. About 40 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Salisbury normally reaches 54° and falls to 33°. The record high is 81°, in 1999; the record low 5°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.02 in, fell in 1985.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Salisbury, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
