The Alamance 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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4.30 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 2.57 inches, fell in 2009.
Alamance’s center stands about 560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 510 ft to 690 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cane Creek Mountains, about 1,020 ft, 7 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metamorphosed Gabbro and Diorite (metagabbro, metadiorite), from the Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 43×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Metaandesite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Metabasalt. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.4 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 Alamance reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Big Alamance Creek, the Haw and the Cape Fear: about 240 river miles.
190 miles of the trip are on the Cape Fear.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alamance; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Alamance has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Alamance normally reaches 61° and falls to 39°. The record high is 79°, in 1955; the record low 23°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 2024.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Greensboro Wtp, 18 miles west, 200 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
