The Gold Hill 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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4.20 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1911. The next wettest, 4.00 inches, fell in 2009.
Gold Hill’s center stands about 780 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 650 ft to 810 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is High Rock Mountain, about 1,200 ft, 10 miles northeast.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 49×. 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 5 mi of the line.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasedimentary. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 385 to 415 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 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. 2 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 Gold Hill reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Little Buffalo Creek, Dutch Buffalo Creek, the Rocky, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 280 river miles.
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 Gold Hill; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Gold Hill has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 48 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Gold Hill normally reaches 62° and falls to 40°. The record high is 83°, in 1931; the record low 16°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.97 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Albemarle, 11 miles southeast, 170 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
