The Mount Airy 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
Sunny
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Mostly sunny
3.50 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.14 inches, fell in 2006.
Mount Airy’s center stands about 1,100 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 990 ft to 1,280 ft, a difference of 290 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Fisher Peak, about 3,540 ft, 13 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Quartz Diorite to Granodiorite (granodiorite, quartz-diorite), from the Middle Devonian, 390 to 391 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 9×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagraywacke. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Granodiorite, quartz-diorite. Age: Middle Devonian, 390 to 391 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.2 to 1.2 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke, muscovite-schist. 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. 4 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 Mount Airy reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Lovills Creek, the Ararat, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 370 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 Mount Airy; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Mount Airy has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 86° in July; winter nights fall to about 25° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 50 inches of water.
On November 14 Mount Airy normally reaches 60° and falls to 33°. The record high is 77°, in 2003; the record low 11°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 2.05 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Mount Airy 2 W, 3 miles west. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
