The Love Valley 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.
9.08 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1994. The next wettest, 3.75 inches, fell in 2009.
Love Valley’s center stands about 1,220 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,010 ft to 1,620 ft, a difference of 610 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Pores Knob, about 2,680 ft, 10 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Gneiss and Schist (biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 10×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Early Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 455 to 540 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 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 Love Valley reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Snow Creek, the South Yadkin, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 330 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Tillery.
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 Love Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Love Valley has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 53 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Love Valley normally reaches 60° and falls to 39°. The record high is 74°, in 2007; the record low 19°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.75 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1994 at Taylorsville, 11 miles west-southwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.