The Stem 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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21° on Nov. 12, 2019, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1994. Next is 23° in 2013.
Stem’s center stands about 460 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 310 ft to 570 ft, a difference of 260 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Glenns Mountain, about 860 ft, 11 miles west-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Metamorphosed Granitic Rock (metagranite), from the Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 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 45×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metadacite, metarhyolite, metavolcanic. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Metagranite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian, 520 to 650 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Metagabbro, metadiorite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic, 252 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.9 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, amphibolite. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 0.1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
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 Stem reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Ledge Creek and the Neuse: about 260 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Stem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Stem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 89° in July; winter nights fall to about 29° in January. About 47 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1994 at Oxford Ag, 10 miles northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
