The Rockfish 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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5.53 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1910. The next wettest, 4.18 inches, fell in 1920.
Rockfish’s center stands about 230 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 150 ft to 280 ft, a difference of 130 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Gaddys Mountain, about 550 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Middendorf Formation (sand), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 58×. 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. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone, mudstone. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 2 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 Rockfish reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Gully Branch, Rockfish Creek and the Cape Fear: about 150 river miles.
130 miles of the trip are on the Cape Fear.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rockfish; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rockfish has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 92° in July; winter nights fall to about 34° in January. About 45 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rockfish normally reaches 65° and falls to 42°. The record high is 85°, in 1931; the record low 23°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.37 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1910 from the Fayetteville Area threaded record (Fayetteville Regional Airport Grannis Field, 11 miles east). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
