The Carolina 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.
Partly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
3.53 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.49 inches, fell in 1975.
Carolina’s center stands about 90 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 60 ft to 290 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Bald Hill, about 660 ft, 13 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Sterling Igneous Suite - alaskite gneiss, from the Neoproterozoic, 596 to 606 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 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 596 to 606 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Late Devonian, 366 to 380 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Permian, 271 to 275 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Gneiss. Age: Neoproterozoic, 596 to 606 million years old. About 0.8 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 Carolina reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Pawcatuck: about 30 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Carolina; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Carolina has a hot-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 83° in July; winter nights fall to about 21° in January. A normal year brings about 34 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 53 inches of water.
On November 14 Carolina normally reaches 55° and falls to 34°. The record high is 71°, in 1993; the record low 12°, in 1905. The most rain on this date, 1.73 in, fell in 1972.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Kingston, 7 miles east-northeast. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
