The Cherryville 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.
5.48 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1952. The next wettest, 3.24 inches, fell in 2009.
Cherryville’s center stands about 950 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 810 ft to 1,020 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Carpenter Knob, about 1,580 ft, 14 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 57×. 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 14 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Mississippian, 351 to 352 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 455 to 540 million years old. About 2 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 Cherryville reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Lick Fork, Indian Creek, the South Fork Catawba, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 320 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
90 miles of the trip are on the Wateree.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cherryville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cherryville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. A normal year brings about 6 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Cherryville normally reaches 62° and falls to 38°. The record high is 80°, in 1999; the record low 19°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.97 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1952 at Lincolnton 4 W, 6 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.