The Bethlehem 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
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
5.77 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1949. The next wettest, 2.67 inches, fell in 1972.
Bethlehem’s center stands about 1,130 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 930 ft to 1,250 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Hickory Knob, about 2,590 ft, 12 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Gneiss and Schist (biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 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 18×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 455 to 540 million years old. About 0.9 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 Bethlehem reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Middle Little, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 370 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Norman.
95 miles of the trip are on the Catawba.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bethlehem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bethlehem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Bethlehem normally reaches 60° and falls to 39°. The record high is 79°, in 1999; the record low 17°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.65 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1949 at Hickory Faa Airport, 7 miles southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
