The Rowland 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; warmer
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
5.48 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1903. The next wettest, 3.75 inches, fell in 2008.
Rowland’s center stands about 150 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 120 ft to 190 ft, a difference of 70 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Black Creek Formation (clay, sand), from the Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 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, sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Pliocene, 2.6 to 5.3 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sand, limestone. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Sand, gravel. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 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 Rowland reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Mitchell Swamp, Persimmon Swamp, Hayes Swamp, the Little Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 130 river miles.
95 miles of the trip are on the Little Pee Dee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Rowland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Rowland has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 35° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Rowland normally reaches 66° and falls to 42°. The record high is 83°, in 1931; the record low 21°, in 2013. The most rain on this date, 1.61 in, fell in 2008.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1903 from the Lumberton Area threaded record (Lumberton Regional Airport, 14 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
