The Dortches 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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7.59 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1914. The next wettest, 5.92 inches, fell in 2009.
Dortches’s center stands about 190 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 120 ft to 240 ft, a difference of 120 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Terrace Deposits and Upland Sediment (gravel, sand), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 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 58×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Clay. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Early Pennsylvanian to Permian, 270 to 320 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 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 Dortches reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hornbeam Branch, the Tar and the Pamlico: about 130 river miles.
80 miles of the trip are on the Tar.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dortches; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dortches has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 49 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 3 inches of snow.
On November 14 Dortches normally reaches 65° and falls to 39°. The record high is 81°, in 1959; the record low 22°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1914 at Rocky Mount 8 ESE, 13 miles southeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
