The Oriental 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
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
7.81 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1968. The next wettest, 3.81 inches, fell in 2020.
Oriental’s center stands about 14 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 0 ft to 70 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country. Open water lies within three miles.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Surficial Deposits, Undivided (sand, clay, gravel), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 2 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.
Sand, clay, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 5 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 Oriental reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Greens Creek and the Neuse: about 13 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Oriental; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Oriental has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 59 inches of rain fall in a normal year, with about 1 inch of snow.
On November 14 Oriental normally reaches 65° and falls to 42°. The record high is 82°, in 1985; the record low 23°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 1.38 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1968 at Bayboro 3 SW, 10 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
