The Alabama 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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75° on Nov. 11, 2020, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1911. Next is 73° in 2012.
Alabama’s center stands about 650 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 610 ft to 770 ft, a difference of 160 ft: gently rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is East Hill, about 800 ft, 12 miles southwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Camillus, Syracuse, and Vernon Formations (shale), from the Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 33×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale. Age: Silurian, 422 to 428 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Limestone. Age: Early Devonian to Middle Devonian, 388 to 410 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Dolostone. Age: Silurian, 425 to 434 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Ordovician, 445 to 459 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 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. 3 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.
Alabama has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 80° in July; winter nights fall to about 16° in January. A normal year brings about 74 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 37 inches of water.
On November 14 Alabama normally reaches 48° and falls to 32°. The record high is 69°, in 1994; the record low 8°, in 2019. The most rain on this date, 0.54 in, fell in 1961.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1911 at Batavia, 12 miles east-southeast, 260 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
