The Ruffin 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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5.71 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1916. The next wettest, 4.02 inches, fell in 2009.
Ruffin’s center stands about 720 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 500 ft to 770 ft, a difference of 270 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Stills Mountain, about 940 ft, 13 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Biotite Gneiss and Schist (biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock), from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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 37×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 16 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibole-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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 Ruffin reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Lick Fork, Hogans Creek, the Dan and the Roanoke: about 270 river miles.
Lake on the way: Roanoke Rapids Lake.
130 miles of the trip are on the Roanoke.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ruffin; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ruffin has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 44 inches of water.
On November 14 Ruffin normally reaches 61° and falls to 36°. The record high is 83°, in 1989; the record low 18°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 1.53 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1916 from the Danville Area threaded record (Danville Regional Airport, 15 miles northeast, 170 ft lower). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
