The Blowing Rock 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
Sunny; warmer
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5.19 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1980. The next wettest, 3.26 inches, fell in 2009.
Blowing Rock’s center stands about 3,580 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,930 ft to 4,270 ft, a difference of 2,340 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Calloway Peak, about 5,920 ft, 8 miles west-southwest.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 950 to 1,250 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Metasiltstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic, 1 to 1 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Greenstone. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 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. 4 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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.
Blowing Rock straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. Rain on the southwest side runs to the Atlantic Ocean; most of the rest goes to the Gulf of America.
From the center of town, a raindrop reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Middle Fork South Fork New, the South Fork New, the New River, the Kanawha, the Ohio and the Mississippi: about 2,130 river miles. One that lands on the southwest side reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Johns, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 430 river miles.
Lake on the way: Claytor Lake.
970 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Blowing Rock; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Blowing Rock has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 26 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 59 inches of water.
On November 14 Blowing Rock normally reaches 53° and falls to 30°. The record high is 68°, in 1985; the record low 10°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.57 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1980 at Boone 1 SE, 6 miles north-northeast, 480 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
