The Old Fort 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
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Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.90 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.68 inches, fell in 1935.
Old Fort’s center stands about 1,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,370 ft to 2,570 ft, a difference of 1,200 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Mitchell, about 6,660 ft, 10 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Rocks of Brevard Fault Zone (schist, phyllonite), from the Devonian to Permian, 252 to 422 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 4×. 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, mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 542 to 1,000 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Early Cambrian, 524 to 525 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Amphibolite, biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Schist, phyllonite. Age: Devonian to Permian, 252 to 422 million years old. About 0.9 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 Old Fort reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mill Creek, the Catawba, the Wateree, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 440 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lib Pines Lake, Lake Norman and Lake James.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Old Fort; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Old Fort has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 85° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 57 inches of water.
On November 14 Old Fort normally reaches 61° and falls to 38°. The record high is 79°, in 1909; the record low 18°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 1.48 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Marion, 10 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
