The Falcon 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.
5.53 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1910. The next wettest, 4.18 inches, fell in 1920.
Falcon’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 120 ft to 200 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Killens Hill, about 300 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cape Fear Formation (sandstone, mudstone), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 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.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 0.7 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 Falcon reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the South River, the Black River and the Cape Fear: about 150 river miles.
75 miles of the trip are on the South River.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Falcon; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Falcon has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Falcon normally reaches 65° and falls to 42°. The record high is 85°, in 1931; the record low 23°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.37 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 from the Fayetteville Area threaded record (Fayetteville Regional Airport Grannis Field, 19 miles southwest). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.