The Mooresville 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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Mostly sunny
4.28 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1954. The next wettest, 3.16 inches, fell in 2020.
Mooresville’s center stands about 910 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 760 ft to 940 ft, a difference of 180 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Youngs Mountain, about 1,100 ft, 14 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Granitic Rock, from the Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 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.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Ordovician to Devonian, 359 to 487 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metabasalt, metaandesite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit 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 Mooresville reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Reeds Creek, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 330 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake and Lake Norman.
95 miles of the trip are on the Catawba.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Mooresville; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mooresville has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 27° in January. About 44 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 4 inches of snow.
On November 14 Mooresville normally reaches 62° and falls to 36°. The record high is 77°, in 1989; the record low 19°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.69 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1954 at Salisbury 9 WNW, 13 miles northeast, 180 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
