The Gerton 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
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Partly cloudy
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78° on Nov. 16, 1955, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1869. Next is 78° in 1958.
Gerton’s center stands about 2,820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 2,110 ft to 4,070 ft, a difference of 1,960 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Craggy Knob, about 5,560 ft, 15 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Henderson Gneiss, from the Early Cambrian, 524 to 525 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 7×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Early Cambrian, 524 to 525 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Silurian, 438 to 439 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 3 smaller units 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 Gerton reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hickory Creek, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 350 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
170 miles of the trip are on the Broad.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Gerton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gerton has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 10 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Gerton normally reaches 60° and falls to 36°. The record high is 76°, in 1999; the record low 16°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 0.99 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1869 from the Asheville Area threaded record (Asheville Regional Airport, 11 miles west-southwest, 700 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
