The Columbia 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.
Sunny
Partly cloudy
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Sunny; warmer
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6.98 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1903. The next wettest, 5.72 inches, fell in 1929.
Columbia’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 120 ft to 270 ft, a difference of 150 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Red Hill, about 390 ft, 13 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Pascagoula and Hattiesburg formation (clay, sand), from the Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 58×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay, sand. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 10 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 Columbia reaches the Gulf of America by way of Dry Creek and the Pearl: about 150 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Columbia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Columbia has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 38° in January. About 62 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Columbia normally reaches 69° and falls to 45°. The record high is 85°, in 1924; the record low 23°, in 1963. The most rain on this date, 6.25 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 at Columbia, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
