The Winston-Salem 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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Mostly sunny; warmer
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5.37 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1899. The next wettest, 3.46 inches, fell in 2009.
Winston-Salem’s center stands about 930 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 750 ft to 1,000 ft, a difference of 250 ft: rolling country.
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 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 59×. 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 10 mi of the line.
Granitic. Age: Late Mississippian to Permian, 265 to 325 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Gneiss, amphibole-schist. Age: Neoproterozoic to Cambrian, 487 to 1,000 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metagraywacke. 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.
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 Winston-Salem reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of Peters Creek, Salem Creek, Muddy Creek, the Yadkin, the Pee Dee, the Great Pee Dee, Schooner Creek and the Waccamaw: about 320 river miles.
Lake on the way: Lake Tillery.
150 miles of the trip are on the Great Pee Dee.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Winston-Salem; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Winston-Salem has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 88° in July; winter nights fall to about 31° in January. About 43 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Winston-Salem normally reaches 60° and falls to 39°. The record high is 81°, in 1931; the record low 19°, in 1906. The most rain on this date, 1.42 in, fell in 1940.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1899 at Winston Salem Reynolds Airport, 3 miles north-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
