The Saluda 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.
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny; warmer
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9° on Nov. 15, 1969, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is 12° in 1933.
Saluda’s center stands about 2,180 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,240 ft to 2,560 ft, a difference of 1,320 ft: steep hill country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Sugarloaf Mountain, about 3,950 ft, 12 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Porphyroblastic Gneiss, from the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 8×. 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. Age: Cambrian to Ordovician, 445 to 542 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Mica-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Silurian, 438 to 439 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
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 Saluda reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the North Pacolet, the Pacolet, the Broad, the Congaree, the Santee and the South Santee: about 340 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lib Pines Lake.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Saluda; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Saluda has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 84° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 7 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 59 inches of water.
On November 14 Saluda normally reaches 59° and falls to 34°. The record high is 77°, in 1985; the record low 14°, in 1920. The most rain on this date, 1.75 in, fell in 1957.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Hendersonville 1 NE, 9 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
