The Cooleemee 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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3.40 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.35 inches, fell in 2009.
Cooleemee’s center stands about 730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 640 ft to 840 ft, a difference of 200 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Youngs Mountain, about 1,100 ft, 7 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metamorphosed Mafic Rock (metagabbro, metadiorite), from the Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 44×. 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 11 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 385 to 415 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
Gabbro. Age: Early Ordovician to Early Devonian, 399 to 479 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 Cooleemee reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the South Yadkin, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 280 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Tillery.
150 miles of the trip are on the Great Pee Dee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Cooleemee; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Cooleemee has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Cooleemee normally reaches 62° and falls to 33°. The record high is 74°, in 1999; the record low 18°, in 1996. The most rain on this date, 1.58 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Mocksville 5 SE, 4 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
