The Walnut Cove 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.
4.29 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1946. The next wettest, 4.20 inches, fell in 2009.
Walnut Cove’s center stands about 640 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 860 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Moores Knob, about 2,540 ft, 11 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Newark Supergroup, Dan River Group; Stoneville Formation (mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate), from the Triassic, 202 to 252 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 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Metagraywacke, muscovite-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Biotite-gneiss, mica-schist, calc-silicate-rock. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate. Age: Triassic, 202 to 252 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibole-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 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. 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 Walnut Cove reaches Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Town Fork Creek, the Dan and the Roanoke: about 330 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 Walnut Cove; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Walnut Cove has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 87° in July; winter nights fall to about 28° in January. A normal year brings about 9 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 47 inches of water.
On November 14 Walnut Cove normally reaches 60° and falls to 36°. The record high is 78°, in 1964; the record low 16°, in 1986. The most rain on this date, 2.15 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1946 at Danbury, 10 miles north-northwest, 380 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.