The Littleton 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.
Sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
Sunny
Partly cloudy
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
6.00 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1972. The next wettest, 4.15 inches, fell in 2009.
Littleton’s center stands about 390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 230 ft to 410 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Terrace Deposits and Upland Sediment (gravel, sand), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 6 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 62×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Gneiss, biotite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gravel, sand. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Slate, argillite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Gneiss, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.6 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 Littleton reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Butterwood Creek, Bear Swamp, Little Fishing Creek, Fishing Creek, the Tar and the Pamlico: about 180 river miles.
55 miles of the trip are on Fishing Creek.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Littleton; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Littleton has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 90° in July; winter nights fall to about 30° in January. About 50 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Littleton normally reaches 62° and falls to 40°. The record high is 77°, in 1989; the record low 19°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.06 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1972 at Roanoke Rapids, 14 miles east-northeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
