The Rich Square 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
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Partly cloudy
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Mostly sunny
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6.31 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1948. The next wettest, 5.15 inches, fell in 2009.
Rich Square’s center stands about 80 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 60 ft to 140 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Cape Fear Formation (sandstone, mudstone), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 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.
Clay. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 8 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 Rich Square reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Urahaw Swamp, Potecasi Creek and the Chowan: about 80 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rich Square; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rich Square has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. A normal year brings about 5 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 51 inches of water.
On November 14 Rich Square normally reaches 62° and falls to 38°. The record high is 81°, in 1989; the record low 18°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 1.14 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1948 at Jackson, 12 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
