The Durham 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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4.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1887. The next wettest, 3.93 inches, fell in 1920.
Durham’s center stands about 410 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 300 ft to 430 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Occoneechee Mountain, about 870 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Newark Supergroup, Chatham Group; Chatham Group, Undivided (conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone), from the Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 46×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 15 mi of the line.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.5 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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.
A raindrop that lands in Durham reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Third Fork Creek, New Hope Creek, the New Hope, the Haw and the Cape Fear: about 230 river miles.
190 miles of the trip are on the Cape Fear.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Durham; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Durham has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. A normal year brings about 5 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 46 inches of water.
On November 14 Durham normally reaches 63° and falls to 40°. The record high is 81°, in 1999; the record low 20°, in 1977. The most rain on this date, 1.57 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1887 from the Raleigh Area threaded record (Raleigh-Durham International Airport, 10 miles southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
