The Aiken 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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4.23 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1893. The next wettest, 3.75 inches, fell in 1992.
Aiken’s center stands about 530 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 330 ft to 560 ft, a difference of 230 ft: rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Huber/Lisbon/Barnwell Formations, undivided (clay, sand), from the Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 51×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sand. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 12 mi of the line.
Clay, sand. Age: Eocene, 34 to 56 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sand. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 72 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.
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 Aiken reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Sand River, Horse Creek and the Savannah: about 210 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Aiken; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Aiken has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 94° in July; winter nights fall to about 32° in January. Barely 0.0 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Aiken normally reaches 67° and falls to 41°. The record high is 84°, in 1993; the record low 20°, in 1987. The most rain on this date, 1.10 in, fell in 1983.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 from the Aiken Area threaded record (Aiken 2 E, here). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
