The East Spencer 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.
83° on Nov. 16, 1958, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is 81° in 1912.
East Spencer’s center stands about 730 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 630 ft to 820 ft, a difference of 190 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is High Rock Mountain, about 1,200 ft, 13 miles east-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metavolcanic Rock, from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 385 to 415 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 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 East Spencer reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Town Creek, Crane Creek, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 270 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 East Spencer; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
East Spencer has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 2 inches of snow.
On November 14 East Spencer normally reaches 61° and falls to 37°. The record high is 80°, in 2007; the record low 15°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.67 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Salisbury, 3 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.