The Elizabeth City 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.
6.21 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1934. The next wettest, 3.55 inches, fell in 1937.
Elizabeth City’s center stands about 20 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 70 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Surficial Deposits, Undivided (sand, clay, gravel), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
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.
Sand, clay, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 18 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 Elizabeth City reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Charles Creek and the Pasquotank: about 15 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Elizabeth City; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Elizabeth City has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 33° in January. About 46 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Elizabeth City normally reaches 63° and falls to 42°. The record high is 80°, in 1993; the record low 22°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 3.45 in, fell in 1945.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1934 from the Elizabeth City Area threaded record (Elizabeth City Coast Guard Air Station, 5 miles east-southeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.