The McLain 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.
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy; warmer
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny; warmer
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1991. The next wettest, 2.90 inches, fell in 2024.
McLain’s center stands about 90 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 50 ft to 250 ft, a difference of 200 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Taylor Hill, about 330 ft, 7 miles southwest.
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 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.
Clay, sand. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 20 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Pliocene to Pleistocene, less than 5.3 million years old. About 5 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 McLain reaches the Gulf of America by way of McSwain Branch, the Leaf, the Pascagoula and the West Pascagoula: about 100 river miles.
65 miles of the trip are on the Pascagoula.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of McLain; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
McLain has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 36° in January. About 64 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 McLain normally reaches 72° and falls to 42°. The record high is 82°, in 2010; the record low 24°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 2.61 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1991 at Beaumont Exp.Station, 10 miles north-northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
